Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Vigil

October 23, 2021

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.23.21_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when we will travel with Jesus to Jericho, the lowest place on earth, more below sea level than any other location on the planet. Jesus was passing through that place, representative of the moral pit of the human world, in order to ascend from there the 15 mile road up hill that leads to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and die to lift up the human race and us.

* St. Mark tells us that as Jesus was passing through the town,  “Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road side begging.” Bartimaeus was not born blind, but had become blind over the course of time. We see that in the verb he himself uses later — anablepo — asking Jesus in the Greek to “see again.” But he hadn’t just lost his sight. To some degree, he had lost the dignity he would have had. He was sitting by the road side begging. He could not take care of himself. He needed basic help. He had hit rock bottom. He was in the depth of the valley of darkness in the lowest place on earth. But it was precisely in that spiritual poverty that Jesus would come to meet him. When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by, he didn’t cry out for alms, which would have been a small request. He didn’t cry out at that point even for a miracle. He cried out simply for mercy. “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” He had doubtless heard of Jesus’ reputation for working miracles to the north in Galilee and was responding in faith. The fact that he called him “Son of David” was a sign he believed Jesus was the Messiah. And his prayer would be answered.

* Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” Like rabbis were accustomed to do on all their pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the major feasts, Jesus was teaching the crowds along the journey. When he heard Bartimaeus’ pleas, he stopped in his tracks and ordered that Bartimaeus be brought to him. For Jesus, caring for this man was more important than what he was teaching at that moment, because he was about to show the Gospel rather than just verbally describe it. He was also going to show how he responds to persistent prayer. They said to Bartimaeus, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you,” words of encouragement to anyone. It would have been very easy for Jesus to have come to meet Bartimaeus exactly where he was begging. But Jesus loved him too much and understood the human heart too well to do that. Instead he drew near, he got close, but then he had Bartimaeus get up to come to him, to exercise Bartimaeus’ freedom, to stoke his desire, to grow his faith, and to give him greater participation in the miracle Jesus himself was about to accomplish. It takes courage to get up and leave our comfort zone to respond to the Lord.

* Bartimaeus had that courage and did. St. Mark tells us, “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.”  The cloak was his outer garment that kept him warm at night. It was in a sense his security blanket. It was quite valuable to him and part of his life. But in crying out, in taking courage and going to Jesus who was calling, he was intentionally embracing a new life and establishing a new security. He left his cloak behind, which is not just a fact but an important symbol of how he was thinking more about clinging...