Thirtieth Sunday of ORDINARY TIME. 29th October 2000
First: Jer 31:7-9; Second: Heb 5:1-6; Gospel: Mk 10:46-52
THEME of the READINGS
The liturgical texts this Sunday emphasize the efficacy of God’s intervention. God is effective by making numerous children of Israel return from exile to their beloved homeland (first reading). With God’s effective power, Jesus Christ restores sight to the blind man Bartimeus, who overcomes all obstacles and thus fulfils his great desire to see (Gospel). God’s salvific efficacy is made especially manifest in Christ, the High Priest, who saves human beings from ignorance and pain, and frees them from their sins.
DOCTrinal MESSAGE
A God who is effective out of love. He who achieves all that he strives for, in appropriate ways, with the best means and in the least amount of time, is effective. This is a definition acceptable to the common mentality. However, God’s efficacy is often disconcerting. No one doubts that God is effective, but the ways and timing of divine efficacy follow directions foreign to us. Often the ways appropriate for God are not appropriate for human beings and vice-versa. Their exile to Babylon probably did not seem like a proper way to the Jews, but it was for God, who thus manifested the power of his love and mercy by enabling them to return to their homeland, "For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born son" (first reading). To go up to Jerusalem is lovely, but to do so in the company of Jesus who will meet the Cross and his death there, inevitably challenges our human way of thinking and our will to follow him. However, there is no doubt that in the Cross the divine power of love shines forth. This mysterious efficacy of redeeming love has continued to live and give life throughout the centuries, up to our very day. It must have been somewhat surprising to the early Christians that Jesus, as High Priest, did not come from the tribe of Levy. This way, however, divine efficacy shone with a new splendor, constituting Jesus Christ not only as High Priest of the Jewish people, but of all humankind, in the manner of Melkisedech. There is nothing more effective in life than love, and God is Love. But the efficacy of love, rather than being discovered with pure reason, is discovered with pure and sincere love.
The prerequisites of divine efficacy. This Sunday’s liturgy indicates some such prerequisites. 1) To believe and hope. Those who had been exiled from Babylon could not forget God’s wonders in the history of their people. God had shown the strength of his hand in the Exodus and in the conquest of the Promised Land. They believe and trust that God will once again act effectively in their favor, although they do not know when or how. Bartimeus has immense faith in the fact that Jesus, the Messiah and the descendant of David, can cure him of his blindness. This is why he cries out fearlessly and boldly, "Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me." The Jews believed that God had granted the High Priest, on the feast of Yom Kippur, the power to forgive the sins of all the people. And we Christians believe with absolute certainty that Jesus Christ, our High Priest, destroyed the world’s sins on the Cross. It is impossible for God to manifest his power in those who do not believe in it. 2) To feel in need of the power of God. The Jews in exile knew perfectly well that they could not get back home on their own. Bartimeus was very aware that he could do nothing to recover his sight. We Christians and Jews are convinced that only God can forgive sins. The self-sufficient do not feel the need for God’s power, and will never be able to be the witnesses of his efficacy in men’s lives and in history. C) Be consistent. If we accept God’s power in our life, we must accept being consistent with its requirements. In other words, as Christians we must be a sort of shop window displaying God’s effective action in us. The Jews exiled from Babylon started walking towards Palestine and Bartimeus followed Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. Christians have not only been redeemed by Christ, the High Priest, but they also live as redeemed beings.
PASTORal SUGGESTIONS
Lord, let me see again! Bartimeus, the blind man, is the figure and symbol of the disciples of Jesus at that historical time in which Jesus passed through Jericho, and at all times. Confronted with the mystery of the Cross and of ignominious death, we Christians often experience Bartimeus’ blindness, his drifting, his poverty. "Bartimeus, a blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road." There are so many Bartimeuses in our time, in the face of the great mystery of pain and innocent suffering! There is a lot of blindness in human beings when confronted with the injustice of suffering, as if suffering weren’t the apex of human perfection. Many of us are very cautious when confronted with the idea of walking with Christ towards the city of pain and death. We remain motionless in the territory of our ego, we lack the will to start walking towards the land of other people’s pain. We are in need, in great need of someone - or better yet Someone - to open our eyes and drag us out of our immobility. A Christian is one who is not afraid to suffer; he says "yes" to health and well-being, to suffering and tribulations. The "yes" of the Christian is a "yes" to the mystery of God-Love, and for those who love God, all things contribute to their good. May the Lord allow all of us Christians to repeat often, "Lord, let me see again!" So that by seeing I may believe, and by believing I may firmly follow your footsteps towards the Cross.
Following Christ. He who believes in Christ and follows in his footsteps is a Christian. The following of Christ is not the following of a doctrine like that of Pythagoras, of Aristotle or of Zenon. One who follows a way of life traced out in ancient manuscripts, following the great moral teachers of the East and West, is not a Christian. The Christian follows a person, the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, the Christian is one who lends Jesus Christ his human nature, so that the Lord can make himself present in today’s world. In other words, being a Christian is being the transparent image of Christ for others. Are we Christians a transparent image of Christ? Are you a transparent image of Christ in your family, in your parish, among your friends? Or are you a disfigured image of Jesus Christ? Taking our Christian vocation seriously has been a historical imperative from the beginning of Christianity. What can I do to be a transparent image of Christ in every place and circumstance? Let us build a chain of transparent images of Christ so that the world, our world, be saved by the one and only Savior.
Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOB.html by P. ANTONIO IZQUIERDO L.C. (1948-2013)
[참고: 이 파일은 저서명 "가톨릭 교회의 말씀 전례에 따른 성경공부 해설서"(엮은이: 소순태, 출판사: 가톨릭출판사)의 각주의 연장으로 마련되었습니다].