The
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
It is perhaps a curious thing that we
sing with the Psalmist today, “The Lord has done great things for us; we are
filled with joy” (Psalm 126:3). Taken from the third verse of Psalm 126, this
verse comes just before the Psalmist prays, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like
the torrents in the southern desert” (Psalm 126:4). Clearly this Psalm is not
simply about gladness of heart, but also about deep loss and sorrow. This
seeming emotional contradiction is also seen in the final verse of this Psalm:
“Although they go forth weeping, carrying the seed to be sown, they shall come
back rejoicing, carrying their sheaves” (Psalm 126:6). In the Christian life,
the two – sorrow and joy - seem to go hand in hand.
When he thought about the meaning
of this verse, of going forth weeping and coming back rejoicing, Saint
Augustine recognized that it applies to every Christian; we all go forth
weeping and we all return rejoicing. To clarify his meaning, he asked,
Is
there anyone, after all, who stands still? Is there anyone who, from the moment
he enters life, is not forced to get moving? An infant is born; it gets moving
by growing. Death is the end. We have still got to come to the end – but with
merrymaking.[1]
This is the reality of human life
that far too many people try to ignore. And so, when the approach of death at
last seems certain and we can run from it no longer, many people come to the
end not with merrymaking, but with deep sorrow and regret. This, my friends, is
not how a Christian - who has lived a life worthy of his or her Lord -
approaches death.
Together with so many of the
Saints, Saint Francis of Assisi looked toward death with great longing. This is
why he could sing in his Canticle of
Brother Sun,
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.[2]
The great troubadour of the Lord speaks of bodily death as “the second death” because he knows that those joined to the Lord Jesus in the waters of baptism have already died and so the second death, bodily death, was no great concern for him because he trusted in the words of Saint Paul:
Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into
death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).
Saint Paul wrote these words to the
Christians in Rome because he trusted in Jesus’ own words: “I am the
resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he
live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe
this” (John 11:25-26)? Jesus asked this question to Martha, but he also asks it
to each of us.
The man in the Gospel, Bartimaeus, likewise
trusted in the words of the Lord Jesus and in his power. This is why, despite
the attempts of the crowd to silence and humiliate him, he kept calling out,
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me” (Mark 10:48). In his blindness,
Bartimaeus saw more of who Jesus is than the seeing crowd around him. “Those
following Jesus [had] not yet learned to bring people to him instead of sending them away.”[3]
Who do we try to keep from Jesus? Who is it we should instead bring to Jesus?
Nevertheless, Bartimaeus would not
be silenced and kept calling out to Jesus in humble trust, unafraid to disturb
the crowd or make them uncomfortable, because he was confident in the Lord’s
merciful love. What do we allow to silence us from calling out to Jesus in
humble trust? Are we as persistent in our prayer as Bartimaeus, or do we yield
to obstacles on the way to him?
Hearing
the blind man’s pleas, Jesus had him brought before him. The crowd, who just a
moment before tried to keep Bartimaues from Jesus, now attempts to encourage
him even though he was not the one who needed encouragement. “The decisive moment was the direct, personal encounter
between the Lord and that suffering man. They found each other face to
face: God with his desire to heal and the man with his desire to be
healed; two freedoms, two converging desires.”[4]
Standing before the eyes of love, though unable to yet see them,
the blind man said simply to Jesus, “Master, I want to see” (Mark 10:51).
With these words, the miracle was worked: God's joy and the man's
joy. And Bartimaeus, who had come into the light, as the Gospel narrates,
"followed him on the way"; that is, he became a disciple of the Lord
and went up to Jerusalem with the Master to take part with him in the great
mystery of salvation [Mark 10:52]. This account, in the essentiality of its
passages, recalls the catechumen's journey towards the Sacrament of Baptism,
which in the ancient Church was also known as "Illumination".
Faith is a journey of illumination: it starts with the humility of
recognizing oneself as needy of salvation and arrives at the personal encounter
with Christ, who calls one to follow him on the way of love.[5]
To live as an authentic disciple of
Jesus requires that we place his will before our own; it means that we cast off
our self-absorption and take up the mantle of his selflessness; it means that
we live not according to our own person rules, thoughts, and whims, but that
adhere to his commandments and to his logic of love. All of this requires a
daily dying to self, which can be difficult and painful and sometimes produces
weeping. This is why Saint Augustine encourages us with these words:
He
suffered for us, let us suffer for him; he died for us, let us die for him, in
order to live forever with him. But perhaps you are hesitant to die, O mortal
creature, though you are bound to die sometime or other, precisely because you
are mortal. Would you like not to fear death? Die for God.[6]
Having gone forward in this life weeping,
may the Lord unite us so closely to himself that, seeing the beauteous glory of
his Face, we may come to end rejoicing. Amen.
[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 31.3.4.
[2] Saint Francis of Assisi, The Canticle of Brother Sun, 12-14.
[3] Mary Healing, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: The Gospel of Mark (Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008), 217.
[4] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 29 October 2006.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 313D.3.
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