Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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For three Sundays in a row, we have heard of people approaching Jesus with a request:
+ two weeks ago: the rich young man who raised the question: “What must I do to gain eternal life?”
+ last week: The Apostles James and John asking for places of recognition when Jesus comes into His glory
+ today: the blind man Bartimaeus calling out simply: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”
Each time, the Lord responds with a question that clarifies their request, re-directs their desire or ambition, and then sets them on the way of perfection… a way that differs from person to person.
This week’s interaction is the simplest: When the Lord asks the man, “What do you want me to do for you?” the man responds without pretension or ambition: “I want to see.” Note how the Lord grants the man’s request with immediacy: not “Go, sell what you have and give to the poor,” nor “To sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give,” but “Your faith has saved you,” as He works a miracle, curing the man’s blindness.
In hearing these three stories, we learn three things about making a request of the Lord: You have to know what you’re asking for… It has to be something that God can do (which means that it has to approach His Divine Will)… and It has to be something that both comes from our faith, and strengthens our faith.
Everything Our Lord does is pointed toward our faith and our eventual salvation, which is why He says to the man, “Your faith has saved you,” not “Your faith has healed you.”
Our prayer, done well and properly, makes us more keenly aware of our need, helps us to articulate that need, places us before God in humility, and anticipates His response in hope, all in the context of faith. Faith becomes the connection between heaven and earth, so, healing becomes an element of redemption, because there can be no suffering in heaven.
What we learn from the Lord’s restoration of vision to the blind man Bartimaeus is that in response to our prayer, God grants us a new way of looking at things, a new vision, as it were, that internal way of seeing things we call “insight.” This explains why, when we understand something for the first time, or grasp a new idea, we might say, “I see.”
For the non-believer, faith in eternal things or in revelation can only be a construct of the imagination, which seems to be a superstition, or secret dishonesty which draws a veil over man’s existence as it really is. For the non-believer, life becomes about the world, and the world alone. There exists no reality beyond one’s own perception, no link with the eternal, no revealed truth: What you see is what you get.
But it’s different for the person of faith. The believer knows that through faith, one has access to God’s world: a world where there is room for the divine and the eternal, which grants a new way of seeing things, which brings such graces as:
+ patience in difficulty
+ serenity in the midst of suffering
+ peace in times of anxiety
+ joy in the moment
+ hope when all seems lost
Faith empowers the believer to open spheres of reality that are not otherwise open to human reason. The believer turns from himself and simply believes in God, which opens up for him the hidden Kingdom of eternal truth, which is God’s Holy Will, revealed in love — divine love — inaccessible to the non-believer. This is the answer to our prayer that God has been holding in His heart for all eternity, waiting for us to ask.
In answer to prayer, imagine, if you will, the Lord Jesus speaking to your subconscious, saying, as He said to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” If we were to respond, “Lord, that I might see,” He will grant us a new vision so that we might see the world, or at least the need of the present moment, through eyes of faith.
To say in faith, “Lord, that I might see…” opens one’s eyes, one’s heart, and one’s mind to a more profound submission to God’s will, His plan, His desire, and allows the person to see the world in a limited, but growing way in the way God sees the world — that is — the myriad opportunities for grace, peace, and holiness: granting a first peek into the eternal life of heaven.
This changes our outlook, which in turn changes our prayer, prompting us now to say: Lord, that I Might:
+ trust in your Will
+ hope in the future
+ love in the moment
+ forgive the past
+ encourage others
+ believe in the Truth
+ share the Faith
+ be an Instrument of your Peace
When we hear that familiar phrase: “Prayer changes things,” we hear it in the light of faith to mean “Prayer changes the person praying.”
Our attitude in prayer is purified into an abiding with God that enables a greater understanding of God’s eternal purposes with the temporal world. Prayer now opens the heart so that God can take charge of the person and make the person better able to obey Him in peace and in joy.
It draws one away from an atmosphere of sin and transports one to a heavenly environment, without alienating him from the world. The purification of prayer, as well as prayer’s purification of one’s outlook, does not make a person deaf or blind to the world, with its miseries and demands, but gives one new insight, to look at that world around us with greater hope and charity, so that one might work with the Lord in His ongoing sanctification of the world.
We now look at others in a different light: God has placed them there, not to meet our needs, primarily, but as an opportunity to love others with the heart of Christ, when our hearts just don’t seem up to it. Aware of imperfection, we seek the good — perhaps a hidden good — in others, which is why our Mothers told us: “Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.”
Although prayer can transport us to a certain, limited awareness of heaven, we experience heaven for the time being, from the standpoint of earth, aware of God’s transcendent, merciful love that can heal us of blindness to sin, and make us aware of our goodness through Grace, so that we might call to Him with sincerity and humility: “Lord, that I might see!”