30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

My Dear People,

In today’s gospel there is an individual who would not listen or be quiet. Hearing the commotion the crowd was making, the blind man asks, “What is happening?” They told him, “It is Jesus of Nazareth.”   At this his soul was so fired with faith in Christ that he cried out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”

Don’t you feel the same urge to cry out? You who are also waiting on the shoulder of this highway of life that is so very short? You who need more light, you who need more grace to make up your mind to seek holiness?  Don’t you feel an urgent need to cry out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me?’  What a beautiful aspiration for you to repeat again and again! 

’Many rebuked him, telling him to be silent’ as people have done to you, when you sensed that Jesus was passing your way.  Your heart beat faster and you began to cry out, prompted by an intimate longing.  Then your friends, the need to do the accepted thing, the easy life, your surroundings, all conspired to tell you: ‘Keep quiet, don’t cry out.  Who are you to be calling Jesus? Don’t bother him.’

But poor Bartimeus would not listen to them.  He cried out even more: ‘Son of David, have mercy on me.’  Our Lord, who had heard him right from the beginning, let him persevere in his prayer.  He does the same with you.  Jesus hears our cries from the very first, but he waits.  He wants us to be convinced that we need him.  He wants us to beseech him, to persist, like the blind man waiting by the road from Jericho.  Let us imitate him.  Even if God does not immediately give us what we ask, even if many people try to put us off our prayers, let us still go on praying. 

‘And Jesus stopped and told them to call him.’  Some of the better people in the crowd turned to the blind man and said.  ‘Take heart; rise, he is calling you.’ Here you have the Christian vocation! But God does not call only once.  Bear in mind that our Lord is seeking us at every moment:  Get up, he tells us, put aside your indolence, your easy life, your petty selfishness, your silly little problems.  Get up from the ground, where you are lying prostrate and shapeless.  Acquire height weight and volume, and a supernatural outlook.

Never forget that Christ cannot be reached without sacrifice.  We must get rid of everything that gets in the way.  You must do the same in this battle for the glory of God, in this struggle of love and peace by which we are trying to spread Christ’s kingdom.

As Bartimeus received his sight because of his faith, so we receive our “mission in life.”  We must walk with Jesus as Bartimeus did, trying to walk in His footsteps, to clothe ourselves in Christ’s clothing, to be Christ himself. Well, your faith in the light of the Lord must be both operative and full of sacrifice. We must keep in step with him, working generously, and at the same time uprooting and getting rid of everything that gets in the way. 

Yours in Christ,

 

Fr. Vincent Clemente

 

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