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