Us against the crowd, seeking deliverance from the Lord

 

THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

October 26-27, 2024 – St. Nicholas, Tea

Jer 31:7-9

Heb 5:1-6

Mk 10:46-52

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       In our first reading for this 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Prophet Jeremiah announces to his people in exile in Babylon what their promised deliverance is going to look like. In the name of the Lord, Jeremiah announces the return from the north to Jerusalem of the remnant of God’s people.

       “The Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel… with the blind and the lame in their midst.” Jeremiah explains God’s reason for bringing them safely home in the words: “For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.”

       In today’s Gospel, we see the prophecy of Jeremiah fulfilled with Jesus granting sight to the blind man in answer to his plea. “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” As sons and daughters of our heavenly Father we may ask about our possibilities. What is God’s will for us? Can we be as insistent, as demanding with God in Jesus Christ, as was the blind man, Bartimaeus? Or rather shouldn’t we just sort of cool it after the manner of the crowd which tried to get the son of Timaeus to be silent? What is the sort of deliverance that we can hope for from Christ in answer to our prayers? “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way. Very simply, it is an egregious mistake not to beg like the blind man. It is wrong to hold back and not cry out for help like Bartimaeus.

       Lots of questions, but actually I am asking myself another question, just one. And namely this: Why? What is this business of the crowd trying to tamp down the desperate plea of the blind man? “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” What’s the deal? Why are these people annoyed or embarrassed by the cries of Bartimaeus? How do they understand the nature and mission of Christ? Isn’t Jesus supposed to bring deliverance to us in our hour of need? Shouldn’t it be understandable that this blind man cry out in this desperate situation of blindness which has rendered him virtually helpless?

       When you get to be my age, you can spend more time maybe than you should talking about aches and pains, about your failing eyesight and, even more commonly, about hearing loss, which affects a lot of elderly people. I am sure that Bartimaeus’ blindness or somebody else’s lameness was much worse than anything any of my contemporaries may have suffered. But when you talk to couples especially, you hear about their compassion for a spouse who has become hard of hearing and not only misses the plot but is often emarginated from life to such an extent that they may appear to be losing it even mentally, even though that is not the case. We don’t know if Bartimaeus’ wife or some other relative might have been there in the crowd hushing him down, but we can speculate about how the crowd’s lack of faith in the person and power of Jesus Christ would keep them from hoping for and pleading for deliverance from Christ the Redeemer, real deliverance for this blind man.

       Who is Jesus Christ? October, Rosary month, is a time when we remember the early Church councils which struggled with this question and answered it by professing Mary the holy Mother of God and thereby professing Jesus, her Son, to be truly God and truly Man. Part of Jeremiah’s prophetic message to Israel in the Babylonian captivity was that God’s people should not give in to desperation, but accept their punishment at the hands of God, remain faithful and live in hope of deliverance and a return to their homeland.

       On the Jericho road there, the crowd was ostensibly following Jesus, but not really. By shouting down Bartimaeus’ cries for deliverance they were denying Christ’s power to save him and them. Jeremiah in his prophecy of deliverance for Israel showed God saving his people despite themselves. Jesus restored sight to the son of Timaeus despite the crowd who would hear none of it.

       In the last couple years we in the Church have been struggling with several things which have undermined the faith of many of our Catholic people. Let me mention only the complicity of the Church authorities in the COVID lockdown which further and radically brought down Sunday Mass attendance. As far as is physically possible we are obliged under pain of mortal sin to assist at Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. There is no room for discretion here: if we can, if we are able, then we must get to church. By so easily dispensing from Sunday and closing churches, we scandalized people seriously. I still occasionally run into people who have not gone back to Mass. The precepts of the Church form a substantial part of the backbone of our faith. The great efforts that were made to prepare and celebrate the national Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis some months back were wonderful indeed, but ultimately secondary in importance to precept and obligation when it comes to fostering people’s faith in the true presence of Jesus, the God man, in the Sacrament of the Altar, the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

       Just as back at Jericho in the days of our Lord, there is a crowd out there which tends to discourage. And so we cry all the louder just like Bartimaeus. “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” Deliverance is ours in the Blood of the Lamb.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

At Christ's Right and at His Left

 

TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY

IN ORDINARY TIME

October 19-20, 2024 - St. Lambert Parish

Is 53:10-11

Heb 4:14-16

Mk 10:35-45

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”  The two brothers, as we know from elsewhere in the Gospels, were pushed on by their mother to ask great things of Jesus. You could say that the request of James and John seems exaggerated, maybe even a bit naïve. Humanly speaking they are asking a lot of the Son of God, not really comprehending either Jesus or His mission for the salvation of the world. That is not to say that their request does not sound familiar, that you and I, that we don’t know people who address prayers to God which are similar. How often have I met people who are angry with God, disappointed in the Lord because He does not seem to grant their wish. Maybe even you in your prayers can identify with the words of James and John: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” In our Gospel today, Jesus responds to the two brothers and makes clear the consequences of what they are asking of Him: “But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

       How many people do you know who are mad at God because He remains silent and does not answer their prayers, that is will not give them what they want?

       While not pronouncing an outright “no!” to their request, Jesus denies the brothers an inside track which will lead them to a place of privilege, to fame and fortune at His side. He not only calls them to a life of service for others but to share in the sacrifice of His life, which will in turn lead to the ransom of many.

       There is much we could say about how Jesus saw Himself. At the very least, I guess you could say that having heard the words of the Son of Man we have no excuse for pretending that keeping company with Jesus should assure us smooth sailing on the seas of life this side of heaven. Jesus promises us a share in His sufferings for the sake of the life of the world, a share in His Cross; He did not preach a prosperity Gospel. The Church confirms the message of Christ by quoting the Prophet Isaiah in our first reading: “The Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity… through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.”

       Jesus does not lend a deaf ear to the brothers. He responds and thereby teaches them the unreasonableness of what they ask of Him.  “What do you wish me to do for you?” They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.”

       When we are young most of us daydream about all sorts of things big and small, more or less ambitious, but it is just that, daydreaming. Few of us face life and our mission in life with the stark realism and courage of the North American Martyrs, that group of missionaries whose sainthood we celebrate on October 19 in the church calendar for the United States. In his diary, his spiritual journal, St. John de Brebeuf while back in France recovering from all the hardships he had faced in the New World prayed to be allowed to return to the north woods to continue the course at the hands of the native Americans which he knew would lead him through more rejection, abuse, brutal suffering and torture to death. He wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of the life of the world. “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” James and John had no idea what Jesus was all about.

       “Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.”

       The other day I read an interview of the Dutch primate, Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht in Holland. Holland for many of us is synonymous with everything that has gone wrong with the Church over the last 60 years or so. It is a tale of parish closures, of failing vocations, of people generally with no idea of what it means to be Catholic. Among the points made by the Cardinal was to explain how the Church in his country was starting to make a comeback from secularization which had left it in ruins. Knowing Cardinal Eijk, as I do, and aware that Holland once upon a time was probably in a better place than we have ever been when it comes to being Catholic, I sort of find myself wondering when the other shoe will drop for us as Catholics in America, yes, even here on the prairie.

       By the grace of God, the Apostles James and John learned what it meant to take their place at Christ’s side. They witnessed to all Jesus had said and did by the wholehearted gift of their lives, James as the first apostle to die a martyr’s death and John as the last to pass from the scene after long year’s of teaching, correcting and rebuking about the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor.

       My prayer is that we would come to understand Christ’s glory, that we all might be lifted to a place at Christ’s side in the world to come for having followed closely now on the way to Calvary.  

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI