LITURGY IN FOCUS

PREPARING FOR NEXT WEEK

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflection: The mercy God longs to give.

By SISTER MARY McGLONE

Last year I went on a minibus ride with clients of a center for people with disabilities in Ecuador. Sitting next to me was Letitia, a petite, wrinkled and worn 60-year-old woman who was propping up her severely disabled 7-year-old grandson, Jimny. As we chatted, she talked of how grateful she was that while the boy received therapy, a special education teacher was teaching her to read and write. As Jimny’s only caretaker and support, Letitia was determined to learn to read lest anyone take advantage of them.

She admitted that it was very hard. Her hands were more accustomed to caring for animals and cooking than to holding a pen, but she explained that once she got a secondhand pair of reading glasses, the task seemed possible and she could already sign her own name. She ended her story with her standard refrain, “Gracias a Dios.”

I was overwhelmed by her combination of courage and humility, fairly certain that I could never have summoned the necessary grit to tackle the task of becoming literate at that age. Our conversation reminded me of how effortlessly education, nutrition and countless opportunities have come to me, of how easy it is to keep my hands clean.

Letitia represents many of the people God sends to tutor the affluent. A bit like Bartimaeus, the blind beggar of today’s Gospel who desired only to be able to see, she believes God will give her the help she needs in spite of the odds.

Bartimaeus initiated his first encounter with Jesus while sitting along the way Jesus was walking on his final journey up to Jerusalem. Bartimaeus, whose name comes from the word honorable (timaios), was not about to let his opportunity go by. He called on Jesus as a royal son of David who was a king responsible to care for the poor. We echo his shout each time we pray Kyrie eleison. That prayer is a plea for God’s effective mercy, the grace that gives us what we need for faithful discipleship at any moment. The image that might best portray eleison-mercy is what the father in Luke 15 gave his prodigal son: He didn’t simply forgive him but brought him home and gave him a position from which he could be a truer son than he had ever been before.

Mark wove this story to make an artful contrast between the disciples and Bartimaeus. Ever since Jesus had turned toward Jerusalem he had been trying to prepare his disciples for all that was to come, but they refused to see his point. When James and John petitioned Jesus to do anything they asked, he made them spell out their shameless ambition before informing them that prestige was not his to distribute. When Jesus asked Bartimaeus what he wanted from him, Bartimaeus responded without hesitation, “Master, I want to see.” Bartimaeus wanted precisely what the disciples were avoiding: to see things clearly. His was the request Jesus had longed to grant and one that he could grant only to someone who had the faith and courage to ask for it.

Mark tells us that instead of touching his eyes or laying his hands on him, Jesus simply told Bartimaeus to go his way because his faith had saved him and that he immediately received his sight. With that, Bartimaeus determined that Jesus’ way would now be his and he began to follow him on the way.

It would be interesting to hear how Bartimaeus might have explained his new vocation to the disciples who were resisting Jesus’ teaching. Perhaps he would have told them that until Jesus healed him, he was incapable of following — and that there were many levels of meaning to that. Blindness had imprisoned him in a small, hazardous world in which he could never be certain of where he was going. Perhaps like Letitia who repeats her “Gracias a Dios” about every dimension of her life, he told them that having experienced Jesus as the Son of David for the poor, he wanted to see all of life from Jesus’ perspective. Perhaps he simply said, “I am so grateful, I never want to lose sight of him.”

Perhaps today Bartimaeus would tell us what Pope Francis has said in Evangelii Gaudium. When we are tempted to keep the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length, Jesus invites us to touch human misery and the suffering flesh of others: “He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from … human misfortune and … enter into the reality of other people’s lives” (#270).

People like Letitia and Bartimaeus are all around us. Without any ordination or theological degree, they are here to teach us that our vocation is all about relying on and becoming sources of God’s mercy.

A closer look at the gospel

This is the last miracle in Mark’s Gospel — as long as we don’t count the anti-miracle of Jesus cursing the fig tree (11:12-14). While it is the last, and therefore by some measures, the greatest, what is more striking is the fact that this is the second time Jesus heals a blind man in this Gospel. These two healing miracles sandwich Jesus’ three attempts to get his disciples to understand who he was in the light of his upcoming passion. 

The first healing (Mark 8:22-26) was also the only time Jesus’ healing power did not work immediately and totally; Jesus had to touch the man’s eyes twice before he saw clearly. The first blind man was very much like the disciples whom Jesus had to teach again and again before they began to see clearly who he was. 

We first hear of Bartimaeus as he sits begging alongside the road Jesus was taking to Jerusalem. That position is important. He was beside Jesus’ “way,” but not yet on it. Bartimaeus heard the news that Jesus was near and began to shout and make a scene with a very specific and insistent exclamation: “Son of David, have pity on me.” 

In Mark’s Gospel, Bartimaeus was the first person to speak of Jesus as a Son of David and his use of that title prepared for the way the crowds who would welcome Jesus into Jerusalem with that same title (Mark 11:10). By recognizing Jesus as the son of David, Bartimaeus was calling him to respond as a particular kind of royal savior. Isaiah had prophesied that the Davidic king would bring justice for the poor and needy (11:4). Psalm 72 describes the ideal king as one who rescues the poor when they cry out. Those allusions provide a backdrop to interpret Bartimaeus’ cry and recognition of who Jesus was. 

Additionally, Bartimaeus called out a very specific request. He begged, “Have pity on me!” He wasn’t asking for the pity or compassion Jesus showed people like the hungry crowd of Mark 6:30. Bartimaeus used the Greek word eleeo which we repeat whenever we pray, “Kyrie eleison.” That word, often translated as mercy rather than pity, refers to an active desire to do something to alleviate the distress of someone who is suffering. It may, as in our penitential rite, include forgiveness, but it is more than that. Bartimaeus’ plea for mercy implied that he believed Jesus had the power and the will to change his condition if only he were made aware of his need. 

Bartimaeus’ persistence paid off. Jesus heard his cry and called him forth. Then, inviting Bartimaeus to make his desire known as plainly as he had recently asked James and John to do, Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Mark designed the story of Bartimaeus to be a corrective alternative to the disciples’ attitudes and actions. Bartimaeus literally started as a beggar. He approached Jesus as someone who had no influence to recommend him. From that humble position, he beseeched Jesus to show him regard and give him the help implied by his plea for mercy.

When Jesus asked just what kind of mercy he wanted, Bartimaeus replied, “Master, I want to see.” In response, Jesus did nothing more than proclaim that Bartimaeus’ faith had saved him. With that, Bartimaeus received his sight and began to follow Jesus along the way. Mark no sooner ends this story than he tells of how Jesus prepared to enter into the city of Jerusalem. Bartimaeus received the vision that allowed him to join Jesus on the way at its most critical juncture.

Reading I

Jeremiah 31: 7-9

Thus says the LORD:
Shout with joy for Jacob,
exult at the head of the nations;
proclaim your praise and say:
The LORD has delivered his people,
the remnant of Israel.
Behold, I will bring them back
from the land of the north;
I will gather them from the ends of the world,
with the blind and the lame in their midst,
the mothers and those with child;
they shall return as an immense throng.
They departed in tears,
but I will console them and guide them;
I will lead them to brooks of water,
on a level road, so that none shall stumble.
For I am a father to Israel,
Ephraim is my first-born.

Responsorial

(Psalm 126: 1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6)

R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion,
we were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with rejoicing.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad indeed.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like the torrents in the southern desert.
Those that sow in tears
shall reap rejoicing.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Although they go forth weeping,
carrying the seed to be sown,
They shall come back rejoicing,
carrying their sheaves.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Reading II

Hebrews 5:1-6

Brothers and sisters:
Every high priest is taken from among men
and made their representative before God,
to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.
He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,
for he himself is beset by weakness
and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself
as well as for the people.
No one takes this honor upon himself
but only when called by God,
just as Aaron was.
In the same way,
it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,
but rather the one who said to him:
You are my son:
this day I have begotten you;
just as he says in another place:
You are a priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.

Gospel

Mark 10: 46-52

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.
On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say,
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. 
But he kept calling out all the more,
“Son of David, have pity on me.”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. 
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” 
The blind man replied to him, “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.