Here’s Pope Francis on Jesus meeting Bartimaeus, the blind man:

” Jesus has just left Jericho.  Even though he has only begun his most important journey, which will take him to Jerusalem, he still stops to respond to Bartimaeus’ cry.  Jesus is moved by his request and becomes involved in his situation.  He is not content to offer him alms, but rather wants to personally encounter him.  He does not give him any instruction or response, but asks him: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mk 10:51).  It might seem a senseless question: what could a blind man wish for if not his sight?  Yet, with this question made face to face, direct but respectful, Jesus shows that he wants to hear our needs.  He wants to talk with each of us about our lives, our real situations, so that nothing is kept from him.  After Bartimaeus’ healing, the Lord tells him: “Your faith has made you well” (v. 52).  It is beautiful to see how Christ admires Bartimaeus’ faith, how he has confidence in him.  He believes in us, more than we believe in ourselves.

There is an interesting detail.  Jesus asks his disciples to go and call Bartimaeus.  They address the blind man with two expressions, which only Jesus uses in the rest of the Gospel.  First they say to him: “Take heart!”, which literally means “have faith, strong courage!”.  Indeed, only an encounter with Jesus gives a person the strength to face the most difficult situations.  The second expression is “Rise!”, as Jesus said to so many of the sick, whom he took by the hand and healed.  His disciples do nothing other than repeat Jesus’ encouraging and liberating words, leading him directly to Jesus, without lecturing him.  Jesus’ disciples are called to this, even today, especially today: to bring people into contact with the compassionate Mercy that saves.  When humanity’s cry, like Bartimaeus’, becomes stronger still, there is no other response than to make Jesus’ words our own and, above all, imitate his heart.  Moments of suffering and conflict are for God occasions of mercy.  Today is a time of mercy!

There are, however, some temptations for those who follow Jesus.  Today’s Gospel shows at least two of them.  None of the disciples stopped, as Jesus did.  They continued to walk, going on as if nothing were happening.  If Bartimaeus was blind, they were deaf: his problem was not their problem.  This can be a danger for us: in the face of constant problems, it is better to move on, instead of letting ourselves be bothered.  In this way, just like the disciples, we are with Jesus but we do not think like him.  We are in his group, but our hearts are not open.  We lose wonder, gratitude and enthusiasm, and risk becoming habitually unmoved by grace.  We are able to speak about him and work for him, but we live far from his heart, which is reaching out to those who are wounded.  This is the temptation: a “spirituality of illusion”: we can walk through the deserts of humanity without seeing what is really there; instead, we see what we want to see.  We are capable of developing views of the world, but we do not accept what the Lord places before our eyes.  A faith that does not know how to root itself in the life of people remains arid and, rather than oases, creates other deserts.

There is a second temptation, that of falling into a “scheduled faith”.  We are able to walk with the People of God, but we already have our schedule for the journey, where everything is listed: we know where to go and how long it will take; everyone must respect our rhythm and every problem is a bother.  We run the risk of becoming the “many” of the Gospel who lose patience and rebuke Bartimaeus.  Just a short time before, they scolded the children (cf. 10:13), and now the blind beggar: whoever bothers us or is not of our stature is excluded.  Jesus, on the other hand, wants to include, above all those kept on the fringes who are crying out to him.  They, like Bartimaeus, have faith, because awareness of the need for salvation is the best way of encountering Jesus.

In the end, Bartimaeus follows Jesus on his path (cf. v. 52).  He did not only regain his sight, but he joined the community of those who walk with Jesus.  Dear Synod Fathers, we have walked together.  Thank you for the path we have shared with our eyes fixed on Jesus and our brothers and sisters, in the search for the paths which the Gospel indicates for our times so that we can proclaim the mystery of family love.  Let us follow the path that the Lord desires. Let us ask him to turn to us with his healing and saving gaze, which knows how to radiate light, as it recalls the splendour which illuminates it.  Never allowing ourselves to be tarnished by pessimism or sin, let us seek and look upon the glory of God, which shines forth in men and women who are fully alive. “

Homily for Synod of Bishops 2015

Three popes involved in the Second Vatican Council have been canonized saints: Pope John XXIII, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Paul VI, whom we remember in our liturgy today. They were declared saints, not just because they were popes, but because of their holiness and their involvement and promotion of the council. 

All of them recognized the Second Vatican Council as the work of the Holy Spirit and each, in his own way, implemented the council. Pope Leo continues the work of the popes before him. 

The popes often describe the council as the path the church must take into the future. Some years ago,   Pope Francis described that path as the road Jesus took from Jericho to Jerusalem to enter the  mystery of his death and resurrection. A winding road, not easy to travel. According to Mark’s gospel his journey began with a delay. Jesus stopped to engage Bartimaeus, the blind beggar. 

The path has unexpected turns and delays.  It can’t be scheduled by a calendar or the best of church planning. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit who is above human planning.

Paul VI was involved especially in the liturgical changes of the council. The shape of our liturgy today is largely due to him. A brilliant man, he also very cautious , with a mind for details. As liturgical changes were being discussed at the council and implemented afterwards, a strong minority in the church urged him to go slowly and not to change much.  Despite their great pressure he trusted and supported  the theologians, catechists and pastors who produced our present liturgy.

Take a look at an early picture of the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, taken from the air in the 1930s. That’s the path of Vatican II.

Two of Pope Paul’s letters are particularly important. Ecclesiam suam on dialogue with the world, and Progressio populorum on the need for the development of peoples.

All my hope lies in your great mercy

Where did I find you in order to make your acquaintance in the first place? You could not have been in my memory before I learned to know you. Where then could I have found you in order to learn of you, if not in yourself, far above me? “Place” has here no meaning: further away from you or towards you we may travel, but place there is none. O Truth, you hold sovereign sway over all who turn to you for counsel, and to all of them you respond at the same time, however diverse their pleas.

  Clear is your response, but not all hear it clearly. They all appeal to you about what they want, but do not always hear what they want to hear. Your best servant is the one who is less intent on hearing from you what accords with his own will, and more on embracing with his will what he has heard from you.

Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!

Lo, you were within,

  but I outside, seeking there for you,

  and upon the shapely things you have made

  I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.

You were with me, but I was not with you.

They held me back far from you,

  those things which would have no being,

  were they not in you.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;

  you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;

  you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;

  I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;

  you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

When at last I cling to you with my whole being there will be no more anguish or labour for me, and my life will be alive indeed, alive because filled with you. But now it is very different. Anyone whom you fill you also uplift; but I am not full of you, and so I am a burden to myself. Joys over which I ought to weep do battle with sorrows that should be matter for joy, and I do not know which will be victorious. But I also see griefs that are evil at war in me with joys that are good, and I do not know which will win the day. This is agony, Lord, have pity on me! It is agony! See, I do not hide my wounds; you are the physician and I am sick; you are merciful, I in need of mercy.

  Is not human life on earth a time of testing? Who would choose troubles and hardships? You command us to endure them, but not to love them. No-one loves what he has to endure, even if he loves the endurance, for although he may rejoice in his power to endure, he would prefer to have nothing that demands endurance. In adverse circumstances I long for prosperity, and in times of prosperity I dread adversity. What middle ground is there, between these two, where human life might be free from trial? Woe betide worldly prosperity, and woe again, from fear of disaster and evanescent joy! But woe, woe, and woe again upon worldly adversity, from envy of better fortune, the hardship of adversity itself, and the fear that endurance may falter. Is not human life on earth a time of testing without respite?

  On your exceedingly great mercy, and on that alone, rests all my hope.

We are leaving Easter Season and going back to Ordinary Time. In our calendar the saints are muted in Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons in order to explore the mystery of Jesus Christ. Like Sundays, the saints do not take first place on these days.

The saints come marching in during Ordinary Time. Our yearly calendar features saints from different times and places because God works in different times and places, however it might seem. God works through saints.

Our recent celebration of the memorial of St. Philip Neri (May 25) is a good example. He lived a remarkably joyful life in 16th century Rome, a city engulfed in the scandals of the papacy and cries for reform. Along with other saints, like Ignatius Loyola, he brought hope and reform to the church of his time.

The trend in hagiography – the study of the saints – is to see them in the world that was theirs, which helps us live in the world that’s ours.“From their place in heaven, they guide us still.” (Preface of the Apostles) They shaped their world. We must do that too. 

Contemporary studies of the saints also  recognize saints weren’t perfect. They were part the political, social, intellectual and religious worlds they lived in. Still, more than today’s celebrities—the media darlings of our time, more than political or business figures, the saints shaped their world. We must do that too.

We need their wisdom and example today.

The saints point to an unfolding plan of God. In a few days we will be celebrating the feast of St. Justin, Martyr. (June 1) Justin was not only an early martyr for his faith, he was also a philosopher who enlisted reason to defend the faith. He’s a witness to God’s plan to embrace reason in our search meaning. A long line of philosophers follow him.

We celebrate St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, African martyrs, (June 3) who point to the expansion of the church in Africa in recent times. St. Boniface (June 5) was the apostle to the Germanic people and instrumental in changing the face of Europe.

There are many saints in our church. Those who revised our calendar of saints after the Second Vatican Council recognized there are some saints more important than others for understanding our developing church. So they designated the feasts of the more important saints as memorials. Others are optional memorials. For some nations or religious communities or individuals these remembered in optional memorials may be important, but saints honored by memorials need to be especially singled out and celebrated in our liturgy.  

In our liturgy now the saints are marching in.

Keep in mind the year 70 when reading the Gospel of Mark and the letters of James and Peter in this first week of ordinary time. In the year 70 Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and its temple and brought its treasures and many Jews as slaves in triumph to Rome. By the year 81 the Emperor Domitian built the Arch of Titus at the entrance to the Roman Forum to honor Titus, his brother, the general who crushed the Jewish revolt. Scenes of Titus’ army returning with the treasures and Jewish slaves–still visible on the arch today– would remind everyone of Roman might.

A few years before the year 70, Peter and Paul, leading figures of Christian expansion in the empire, were put to death under Nero. His persecution was unexpected. The years of Christian expansion described in the Acts of the Apostles– our readings during easter time– seemed over. Surely, Jewish and Gentile Christians experienced fear and questioned as a result of these crushing events?

The Gospel of Mark and the letters of James and Peter were written for Christians facing perilous times.

In Mark’s gospel Jesus tells his disciples:
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men
and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him“ (Mark 9)

The year 70 made Christians question the coming of the kingdom. Keep the year 70 in mind when reading the scriptures from Mark, James and Peter these weeks in the lectionary . We never know.

Ordinary Time resumes after Pentecost with the memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, a recent feast that responds to the desire of many to acknowledge Mary’s role in the Church of Jesus Christ. Appropriately, the feast immediately follows Pentecost, when the Church was bornthrough the Holy Spirit. 

The readings for this feast are from the Book of Genesis and John’s gospel. Mary, the new Eve, stands at the Cross as life-giving blood and water flow from the side of her Son.

Mary will always be present in the Church, a woman of prayer, a mother proclaiming the promises of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

O God, Father of mercies, 

whose Only Begotten Son, as he hung upon the Cross, 

chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, his Mother, to be our Mother also; 

grant, we pray, 

that with her loving help, 

your Church may be more fruitful day by day, 

and exulting in the holiness of her children, 

may draw to her embrace all the families of the peoples.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

We’re back this week into Ordinary Time in the Church Year, after the Lent and the Easter seasons. We resume reading from the Gospel of Mark and begin the First Letter of Peter.

In chapters 10 and 11 of Mark’s gospel, Jesus begins his journey to Jerusalem, a journey many do not understand. Like the rich young man, they decide not to join him. James and John also thought his journey would bring power and prestige, but it was not to be.

The First Letter of Peter is traditionally seen as written by the apostle Peter to Christians threatened by Nero’s persecution in the early 60s. Some modern scholars suggest the First Letter of Peter was written by a later author using Peter’s name.

We hear early baptismal teaching in this letter, reminding its listeners they are God’s own children: they have an inheritance that will never be taken away from them. Though the times be bad, don’t forget the treasure you have.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,
kept in heaven for you
who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith,
to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time.
In this you rejoice, although now for a little while
you may have to suffer through various trials,
so that the genuineness of your faith,
more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire,
may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor
at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:3-9}

When times are bad we need to remember the promises of God.

A feast of Mary occurs every month in the calendar. Tomorrow we have the recent feast of Mary, Mother of the Church. This month we also have the feast of the Visitation (May 31), placed in the calendar between the Feast of the Annunciation (March 15) and the Birth of John the Baptist (June 24) We’re reminded of Mary’s role as a bearer of good news to her older cousin Elizabeth, who will give birth to John. Mary always brings her Son to us too.

This year May 31st is Trinity Sunday. Might be good to celebrate the Visitation feast on Saturday, May 30th.

On May 25, Pope Leo will release his important letter on Ai, Magnifica humanitas.