They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. [Mark 10:46-52, NRSV]
Jesus Heals the Blind Bartimaeus, by Nicholas Poussin, 1650
Mercy, Cardinal Walter Kasper tells us in his book “Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life”, is God’s fundamental and defining attribute. He urges a theological reorientation so that, focusing on God’s mercy, we may better able appreciate mercy and the role it must play in the life of individual Christians, the church and the world.
Pope Francis, for whom this Mercy-book by Kasper has done “so much good”, insists that:
- “The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.” [Evangelii Gaudium, 114]
For Christians, Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love and the exemplar of divine mercy. So the Holy Father urges that we gaze on Christ:
- “To get diverted by many secondary or superfluous things does not help; what helps is to focus on the fundamental reality, which is the encounter with Christ, with his mercy and with his love, and to love our brothers and sisters as he has loved us.”
As we gaze on Christ Jesus in the Gospels, Mark’s narrative of his healing of the blind man Bartimaeus of Jericho offers some clear pointers for reflection and Christian living:
- The words of Bartimaeus, “Jesus, have mercy on me!” [Iesou, eleison me] are the substance of the prayer from the heart of one caught in his wretched human condition, desperately seeking mercy and redress. They resonate with the prayers deep in the hearts of all suffering humanity throughout the world who yearn for the divinity they are familiar with to come and liberate them.
- Bartimaeus’ cries, as all noisy cries do, attract different responses. Mark narrates for us the response from Jesus, the bringer of divine healing, in a way that differs from others. It is a response rich in compassion and mercy. The way Jesus’ response is portrayed yields a crisp picture best summarised in three words, namely: he hears, he calls, and he responds.
- This crisp picture of Good News is at once reminiscent of the Parable of the Good Samaritan [Luke 10:25-37] told by Jesus for the instruction of a lawyer and the enlightenment of his disciples. Rooted in compassion [esplagchnisthe] which in this parable is explicitly stated, the action of the good Samaritan may also be summarized in three words, namely: he sees, he has compassion, and he helps.
- Mark takes the story a step further, so that the one who received healing became a follower. Not only does Jesus restore sight, he brings saving power to all who care to receive it. After dispatching all matters, sin included, which lies at the heart of all pain and alienation, Jesus enlightens us and thus draws us to follow him on the way. To follow Jesus is to walk the path of discipleship, the way of love and service, the way of the Cross which leads through pain and death to a wonderful new life in the Resurrection.
On 9 July 2015, Pope Francis met with clergy, religious men and women, and seminarians at Santa Cruz, Bolivia. To them, he delivered a reflection from a prepared text on Bartimaeus.
He began by describing the state in which the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, found himself: “He sat on the roadside, pushed aside. When he heard Jesus passing by, he began to cry out.”
Then, the Holy Father captured two things that stand out in the story, one is the cry of a beggar, and the other is the different reactions of the disciples. Mark seems to want to show the readers the effect which Bartimaeus’ cry had on the lives of people, especially Jesus’ followers. Pope Francis asked: “How did they react when faced with the suffering of that man on the side of the road, wallowing in his misery?”
He described three vastly different responses in the people: [1] they passed by, [2] they told him to be quiet, and [3] they told him to take heart and get up. Amongst the three is one proper response which would mark out the kind of church Jesus wants to see today. This is what Pope Francis said:
1. They passed by. Perhaps some of those who passed by did not even hear his shouting. Passing by is the response of indifference, of avoiding other people’s problems because they do not affect us. We do not hear them, we do not recognize them. Here we have the temptation to see suffering as something natural, to take injustice for granted. We say to ourselves, “This is nothing unusual; this is the way things are”. It is the response born of a blind, closed heart, a heart which has lost the ability to be touched and hence the possibility to change. A heart used to passing by without letting itself be touched; a life which passes from one thing to the next, without ever sinking roots in the lives of the people around us.
We could call this “the spirituality of zapping”. It is always on the move, but it has nothing to show for it. There are people who keep up with the latest news, the most recent best sellers, but they never manage to connect with others, to strike up a relationship, to get involved.
You may say to me, “But Father, those people in the Gospel were busy listening to the words of the Master. They were intent on him.” I think that this is one of the most challenging things about Christian spirituality. The Evangelist John tells us, “How can you love God, whom you do not see, if you do not love your brother whom you do see?” (1 Jn 4:20). One of the great temptations we encounter along the way is to separate these two things, which belong together. We need to be aware of this. The way we listen to God the Father is how we should listen to his faithful people.
To pass by, without hearing the pain of our people, without sinking roots in their lives and in their world, is like listening to the word of God without letting it take root and bear fruit in our hearts. Like a tree, a life without roots is a one which withers and dies.
2. They told him to be quiet. This is the second response to Bartimaeus’ cry: keep quiet, don’t bother us, leave us alone. Unlike the first response, this one hears, acknowledges, and makes contact with the cry of another person. It recognizes that he or she is there, but reacts simply by scolding. It is the attitude of some leaders of God’s people; they continually scold others, hurl reproaches at them, tell them to be quiet.
This is the drama of the isolated consciousness, of those who think that the life of Jesus is only for those deserve it. They seem to believe there is only room for the “worthy”, for the “better people”, and little by little they separate themselves from the others. They have made their identity a badge of superiority.
They hear, but they don’t listen. The need to show that they are different has closed their heart. Their need to tell themselves, “I am not like that person, like those people”, not only cuts them off from the cry of their people, from their tears, but most of all from their reasons for rejoicing. Laughing with those who laugh, weeping with those who weep; all this is part of the mystery of a priestly heart.
3. They told him to take heart and get up. Lastly, we come upon the third response. It is not so much a direct response to the cry of Bartimaeus as an echo, or a reflection, of the way Jesus himself responded to the pleading of the blind beggar. In those who told him to take heart and get up, the beggar’s cry issued in a word, an invitation, a new and changed way of responding to God’s holy People.
Unlike those who simply passed by, the Gospel says that Jesus stopped and asked what was happening. He stopped when someone cried out to him. Jesus singled him out from the nameless crowd and got involved in his life. And far from ordering him to keep quiet, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He didn’t have to show that he was different, somehow apart; he didn’t decide whether Bartimaeus was worthy or not before speaking to him. He simply asked him a question, looked at him and sought to come into his life, to share his lot. And by doing this he gradually restored the man’s lost dignity; he included him. Far from looking down on him, Jesus was moved to identify with the man’s problems and thus to show the transforming power of mercy. There can be no compassion without stopping, hearing and showing solidarity with the other. Compassion is not about zapping, it is not about silencing pain, it is about the logic of love. A logic, a way of thinking and feeling, which is not grounded in fear but in the freedom born of love and of desire to put the good of others before all else. A logic born of not being afraid to draw near to the pain of our people. Even if often this means no more than standing at their side and praying with them.
Pope Francis called it “the logic of discipleship”.
- This is the logic of discipleship, it is what the Holy Spirit does with us and in us. We are witnesses of this. One day Jesus saw us on the side of the road, wallowing in our own pain and misery. He did not close his ear to our cries. He stopped, drew near and asked what he could do for us. And thanks to many witnesses, who told us, “Take heart; get up”, gradually we experienced this merciful love, this transforming love, which enabled us to see the light. We are witnesses not of an ideology, of a recipe, of a particular theology. We are witnesses to the healing and merciful love of Jesus. We are witnesses of his working in the lives of our communities.
He further described this as “the pedagogy of the Master”, his method of getting messages across to his audience.
- This is the pedagogy of the Master, this is the pedagogy which God uses with his people. It leads us to passing from distracted zapping to the point where we can say to others: “Take heart; get up. The Master is calling you” (Mk 10:49). Not so that we can be special, not so that we can be better than others, not so that we can be God’s functionaries, but only because we are grateful witnesses to the mercy which changed us.
Then, finally, the Holy Father exhorted all to care for the poor.
- On this journey we are not alone. We help one another by our example and by our prayers. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses (cf. Heb 12:1). Let us think of Blessed Nazaria Ignacia de Santa Teresa de Jesús, who dedicated her life to the proclamation of God’s Kingdom through her care for the aged, her “kettle of the poor” for the hungry, her homes for orphaned children, her hospitals for wounded soldiers and her creation of a women’s trade union to promote the welfare of women. Let us also think of Venerable Virginia Blanco Tardío, who was completely dedicated to the evangelization and care of the poor and the sick. These women, and so many other persons like them, are an encouragement to us along our way. May we press forward with the help and cooperation of all. For the Lord wants to use us to make his light reach to every corner of our world.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, July 2016. All rights reserved.
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