October-24-2021

30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time   Throwing off a Crowd and a Cloak

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

This is the third week in a row that the Gospel presents  people who approach Our Lord with a need as he made his way to Jerusalem.  First, there was the rich young man, last week, the apostles, James, and John, today it is a blind man, Bartimaeus.  

The rich young man was well-fed, finely dressed and had many possessions. Bartimaeus was malnourished, ill clad, with a single cloak as his possession. James and John requested places of honor and prestige in the Kingdom.  Bartimaeus was a beggar whose place was at the gritty roadside.  

What does this encounter teach us?  Does Bartimaeus have anything to teach us?   There are few lessons, but I’d like to point out only two:

For us, Bartimaeus is a model of courage.  His cry to Jesus for mercy was so loud and desperate, it irritated the crowd who scolded him, but Bartimaeus would not be intimidated by those who sought to push him into the background.   He would not be silenced and  cried out all the more.  Bartimaeus would seize the opportunity to meet Our Lord and as a result, he received not only his sight but salvation. Pope Benedict observed that Bartimaeus had lost his sight but not his hope!  This hope was the source of his courage before a crowd that would relegate him to the sidelines. 

I am afraid that it is our tendency to “cave in” to the crowd, to the currents our culture even when they run contrary to our faith.  No one likes to stand out. No one likes being branded as odd or out of date. No one relishes being a lone voice in a crowd and so we remain silent or just comply with the majority.  

In this Respect month, I am especially thinking of how our silence and apathy in the face of the many attacks on the dignity of life at every stage allow the culture of death to gain a stronger foothold in our world. Don’t we need the courage of Bartimaeus who refused to be drowned out the crowd or relegated to the sidelines.

The second lesson Bartimaeus provides us is seen in his reaction to the call of Jesus.  St. Mark tells us, “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up and came to Jesus.” That cloak was his only worldly possession.  He would lay in on the ground before him in the hope that passersby would in their charity, throw a coin or two upon it.  

That cloak is a symbol of his former life.  Bartimaeus  threw off his past to take his place again in society, to live a new life.    He need not look to what he had endured for so long, except that it surely made him sensitive and charitable to the marginalized and poor.

How often we fail to throw aside the cloak of the past and embrace the new life Christ’s mercy offers us.  Like Linus in the Charlie Brown series, we  hold on to our blanket.  We stubbornly cling to past hurts, past sins, and failures even for years and years.  It rather dangerous to drive looking only into the rearview mirror, but many people live their lives that way.   How many of us do not allow others to throw off the cloak of their past to allow them a new beginning, a fresh start, by throwing the past mistakes in their face!

We must learn from the past and be grateful for the past but never allow past hurts and sins it to control us. Our Lord wants to offer us a new beginning just as he offered it to Bartimaeus, who prompts this prayer today:  

Lord Jesus, enable me, like Bartimaeus to throw aside the cloak of my past and help me to remember that my hope and my future is in You.  Help me not to dwell on past hurts and painful memories and enable me with courage to journey forward into each new day with you at my side.  Help me also to forgive all those that have caused me pain and fill my heart with new and joyful thoughts.  Lord, with the help of your grace, may I build up new memories that are sweetened by the beauty of Your Person.  Amen.

 

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30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B

We are on a Journey
Deacon Kevin O'Boyle

Good Morning/Evening:

An easy model we can use for our faith lives is that of a journey.  Our faith history is full of journeys, and we see some of them in our readings today. Our readings highlight journeys of reunion of groups, leadership needed through priesthood, and an individual whose faith was strong enough that he shed his protection and relied on the faithfulness of the Lord.

In our first reading, the people of Israel have been scattered.  The better to avoid rebellions, their conquerors have split them up and sent them to far away places to avoid groups gathering.  But here the Lord promises He will bring them back to the promised land.  Even the blind and the lame will be brought back.  The Lord will take them all on a journey home.

In our second reading the author of Hebrews reminds us of where priests, who lead us on our personal journey of faith come from.  From the beginning they have been called out of God’s people to do this work.  Priests do not, simply on their own decide to become a priest.  They respond to a call.  If you ask a priest, or even a deacon why they are in ministry, most all will tell you of a feeling that God was calling them to ministry – to serve the people of God.  The calls may take different forms.  God may use other people or events to inspire the call.  Eventually, in finally agreeing to answer the call, the man will, in most cases tell of a personal calling.  

In the Gospel reading, we see on a personal level, how a blind man moved forward in his journey.  Bartimaeus through off his cloak – an outer garment that gave important warmth and protection, to move forward when Jesus called.  His faith led him to believe that Jesus would not let him down.  Jesus showed his respect for the faith, of Bartimaeus but allowed Bartimaeus to state what he wanted before it was given to him.  It was the faith of Bartimaeus that saved him and carried him forward on his journey.

So, what does this all mean to us today.  It is not hard to see critics of the Church today.  If we are to move forward, and Jesus promised us that the Church would survive and He would always be with us, then perhaps we could learn something to help us in these difficult times.  In the first reading the Lord promised to gather back together His people.  Certainly, the Church today has lost many people.  Recall the prayer of Jesus the night before he died -That they all might be one.  We know that time and again God has pulled His people back together.  We should take faith in that.

We know that one of the big problems we have in our Church today is a lack of vocations.  One cannot ignore the power of the people of God, through prayer and action, to help nurture the call of God.  It can be as simple as saying to someone, “Have you ever considered being a priest (or deacon, or religious)?  I think you would be great at it”.  Praying for vocations, both generically, and for a specific person going through discernment is always important.

Finally, we must realize that for groups to move means individuals must step forward.  And that means we must move beyond the safety of our cloaks – working outside our personal “safe zones” to help move a people.  We can do this with faith, like Bartimaeus did.  

There are many areas in Church that need a push to move along a journey.  In this month of October, two things come to mind – this is the month of the Rosary.  Sadly, while it is recognized as one of our strongest weapons against sin, there are many Catholics today that do not use it.  Until recently, I was one of them.  While I learned the Rosary as a child from my parents, I had not really used it lately.  But I have changed.  And joining the weekly online Rosary for Life that our parish Respect Life committee sponsors was a step I took.  I wasn’t sure of some of the prayers they said beyond the Our Father and Hail Mary – but in a group, I learned quickly.

The second thing that comes to mind in the month of October is Right to Life and our deep struggles against abortion.  Abortion is the murder of unborn babies, plain and simple.  Over 60 million babies died in abortion since 1973.  It is a grave sin.  We must stand up, perhaps moving out of our safety zone and do something to help.  We have groups that we can join.  Most certainly, we can watch carefully who we vote for, and be sure those legislators and other government officials right here in NJ, who take pride in supporting “choice” or other code words for abortion do not get our vote.

We are all on a journey of faith.  We should look to our readings today as guideposts to help us along our journey.  We should have faith that our Lord wants to gather us together, we should pray and encourage vocations for future leadership, and we should realize that we might have to give up some of our safety zones.  Its something to think about.  God Bless.