OCTOBER 28^th. THIRTIETH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Gospel: Mark 10:46-52

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

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As always Don Fabio asks us to apply this Gospel directly to ourselves. We are all blind like Bartimaeus. We feel an anguish and restlessness in our hearts because we have a God-given intuition that we live in darkness, distant from the fullness of life. This natural anguish should not be buried in the hustle and bustle of our lives but should become the basis for a prayer like that of Bartimaeus, “Lord, that I might see!”  

The prayer of Bartimaeus is powerful because he desperately wants to see the light. Often our prayer is dull and lifeless because we are not sufficiently interested in seeing the light

In this celebrated passage we are presented with Bartimaeus, the man who has learned the art of prayer. “Jesus Son of David, have pity on me!” This is a prayer from the heart and, as such, is the greatest weapon against temptation - a profession of faith accompanied with a cry for help. As Jesus walks by, Bartimaeus utters this cry with every breath, stating in one line who Jesus is and who he himself is. Though it may be brief, this is a very important Gospel that teaches us many things. When Bartimaeus is asked by Jesus what his prayer consists in, the blind man replies, “Lord that I may see!” The powerful nature of Bartimaeus prayer derives from his memory that light exists. He is not resigned to an existence in darkness and knows that another state of life is possible. Often our prayer is empty and dull because we lack a strong interior intuition of the realm of beauty that prayer connects us to. No-one asks in a genuine way for something that they are not interested in. Prayers, liturgies and rituals become dull if the people involved are not interested in what the liturgies are oriented towards. We “pray” out of a bureaucratic sense of obligation, not knowing or caring what we are doing.

We are all blind like Bartimaeus. God has planted in our hearts a desire for the true light, which reveals itself as a sort of anguish, an anguish that we should not try to suppress or deny

God has placed in our hearts a memory of the true light! In moments of anguish, we glimpse this original spark and it enables us to pray sincerely. Such anguish is a gift from God. We are gifted by God with a sense of non-fulfilment, a feeling of distance from the fullness of life. It is a great mistake if we try to bury this anguish that reveals the truth about our existence. We make a colossal error if we go into marriage or the consecrated life trying to eke out a soft existence, trying to distract ourselves from the anguish that comes from our own insufficiencies and our distance from the light. We must all cry continually with Bartimaeus, “That I might see!” The verb in Greek that Bartimaeus uses doesn’t just mean “to see” but means “to see in a superior way”. We shouldn’t think that blindness is something that Bartimaeus and others suffer from whilst we can see perfectly. We are all blind in the most important sense, and perhaps Bartimaeus has better vision than us in that he at least recognizes the saving power of the Lord Jesus.

We remain blind until we see from a divine perspective

Until I see things from a divine perspective, I remain blind. When Eve looks at the forbidden tree in the Book of Genesis she sees with eyes that are already blind. She sees the path of transgression as a means of coming to fulfilment, the betrayal of God’s trust as something acceptable. This is the vision that all of us have, and it allows us to place ourselves in opposition to our creator and to the rest of creation. I look at the things around me and don’t see the reality, beauty and divine order that is present. It is not reality that is defective but my way of looking. In Matthew’s Gospel we hear, “If your eyes are afflicted with illness, then how great the darkness is!” To truly see means being finally able to see love, beauty, and the providence of God at work in everything, to see the design of God active in my life, to see oneself for what one truly is.

                Those who are too attached to their own way of seeing things end up noticing only the defects of others. They look around them and see only problems. All of us to some extent share in this way of viewing reality. When we recuperate our sight, we begin to see the beauty of other people, other things, the events of life. We look and finally see with spiritual eyes. Saint Francis said, “Most high and glorious God, illuminate the darkness of my heart!” There is darkness at the heart of the human person, and every day we need to shout “Lord, come to save me! Give me sight! Without you I am blind and see in only a superficial way!” To discover joy, cheerfulness, beauty and love, I need my eyes to be opened to the light.

People try to shout Bartimaeus down but he does not accept compromise. Our daily lives are full of murmuring voices telling us to compromise on our inner desire to live fully in the light.

Bartimaeus shows us how to ask the Lord for sight. In the first place he cries aloud like a madman. While he is shouting, people tell him to be quiet. Our daily existence is filled with murmuring voices that tell us to accept the darkness, to adapt ourselves to the way things are, to put up with the mediocrity of our lives. But Christianity and mediocrity are two things that are fundamentally incompatible with each other! It is inconsistent to be a Christian and to put up with anything less than the fullness of life. The Christian has a thirst for the infinite. This doesn’t mean that the Christian is irrational or filled with anxiety. What it means rather is that the Christian is naturally driven to search out the infinite with the help of God.

                This blind man does not resign himself to his blindness and cries aloud. People tell him to stay quiet but he cries out all the louder. We must do the same. We must relentlessly cry out until we have the light in our hearts. This Gospel challenges us in a fundamental way. Do we wish to remain in darkness or do we wish to live in the light? We must persistently cry out until the Lord stops and shatters our darkness. Why does Jesus not stop immediately when the blind man cries out? Because often our supplications are not sincere. Often our prayers are made just for the sake of “praying” and then we get fed up and stop completely. Jesus wants to see if we sincerely want our eyes to be opened, or if are ready to give up at a moment’s notice. Often our prayers come to an end quickly because we are not sufficiently consumed with obtaining what we ask for. If we thought we could gain materially by asking for something, then we would ask with fervour! But material gain only leaves us in darkness and is of no authentic use. Do we want to be materially rich or do we want to have light in our hearts and know how to live?

Bartimaeus throws away his only material possession and comes to Jesus. Often we approach Jesus whilst still clinging to materialism.

The blind man knows that he must persist in his prayer. He remembers the light and wants to have it above all else. His persistence makes Jesus stop and Jesus asks that the man come to him. Bartimaeus throws aside his cloak and jumps up immediately. His cloak is a symbol of his condition and his way of life. He comes to Jesus while he is still blind, leaving behind him the cloak which is his only possession. He has understood that material possessions are nothing in comparison to what Jesus can give. Often our responses to Jesus are very half-hearted. We want him to enter our lives but we also want to hang on to the “cloak” of our previous materialistic existence, not appreciating that once the grace of God is here, everything is rich and beautiful.

Bartimaeus knows what he wants the Lord to do for him. Have we looked into our hearts sufficiently closely to discern what we want the Lord to do for us?

So the blind man comes, and Jesus asks what he wants to be done for him. Often we do not know what we want the Lord to do for us. The Lord is asking us, “What do you want me to do for you?” and we are there with our mouths open, not knowing what we want. We do not know what we want because we have not looked inside ourselves and tried to discern what is of true and lasting value. This Gospel invites us to enter into prayer and look deeply inside of ourselves. Prayer should not consist in forcing oneself to pray for heaven knows what favour to be granted. As Bartimaeus demonstrates, prayer should be the search for the fullness of light and life.