In today’s gospel reading, a blind man named Bartimaeus got the attention of Jesus. “Jesus’ Son of David, have pity on me.”  Though many people around him were chastises him in calling Jesus. He never stopped and the more he cried out loud for him to be heard.  Jesus heeded his crying and immediately Jesus asked to bring Bartimaeus to him. When Bartimaeus knew that Jesus gave him the chance to approach and meet him, at once he threw his cloak, arose and went to Jesus.  Jesus in replied to Bartimaeus’ cry: “What do you want me to do for you?”  This must be a Bartimaeus’ happiest day in his life hearing the voice of the man he probably waiting for so long.  Without any hesitation, he uttered his desire; “Master, I want to see.”  Jesus words were enough for him to see “Go your way.”  Simple words yet powerful. It might be a typical story of healing; however, this might be our own story.

Living in darkness may not easy for those who are not born blind.  Sickness or accident might be the causes that paralyze their normal lives.   The cry of Bartimaeus might be the same of them desire to see. Nevertheless, there is a kind of blindness, which are not caused by any kind of sickness, either any accident, but keeping our eyes closed to the needs of others and to the society’s malignant sickness.

Many of us, let ourselves to live and witness the blinded side of truth.  Evil one might cover our eyes and understanding to testify to the truth. When an evil one is holding a mango fruit, but he tried to tell you that is a guava and you just follow what the evil one had told you, your eyes were already covered with lies.  There are a lot of cases of people who were not born blind was forced to lose their sight because of the alluring glare of money, fame and power.  These allurements could possess us and loses our sight’s integrity.

Unfortunately, only a few of us can cry out loud like Bartimaeus: “Jesus, son of David, have pity on us.” and desire to see.  We choose to remain blind than to see the light that awaits us. It takes time to leave our cloak and follow the Man who is giving us the chance to approach him.  Our lack of courage brought us to fear and continuously live in the darkness.

We need Jesus.  This is the fact that we have to admit that we need Jesus.  We cannot do nothing without Him.  We usually fall into a false truth that we thought that by our own strength we can resolve difficulties and challenges alone.  Sometimes, He allows but we fall into the same pit of not acknowledging God in our lives and at the end there is a big space tearing us apart.  Bartimaeus for many years grabbed the chance confessing his faith by his actions and trust in Jesus.  The question of Jesus, he conventionally says to the people approaching him “What do you want me to do for you?   It is a question of consolations and hope.  

The society’s increasing cases of blindness might not affect us like where we are so much concern to the increasing positive cases of the virus.  There is no swabbing to find out who are positively blind, possibly of contamination and infections, but we may take the courage to cry out to Jesus that we are longing to see the light: “Master, we want to see.”   We will see the light if together we will cry out loud, so that our voices will be a roaring sound in the ears of God and if the people around us will also give us the courage of showing our faith and trust going to Jesus. We pray that the evil one may not cover the eyes of truth in our faith.

 

Our Lady of La Vang Community