Good morning good people, May the Lord give you peace and health in the Holy Spirit.
It is 24th October 2021.
We celebrate the 30th Sunday of the Ordinary time as Mission Sunday.
We reflect on Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; and the Gospel of Mark 10:46-52.
As we gratefully remember the missions we belong, and the missionaries serve us night and day leaving their homelands, preferred food, dearly beloved friends, family, and all that sustain them to be what they are for the Church, the community and us all.
We are invited to think about blindness in our life. In the first reading God promises to bring back the blind and needy and God would remain as the Father. The letter to Hebrews echoes the same sentiments assuring that we are beloved children of the loving Father-God. The Gospel explains the blindness of the disciple by the recovery of the eyesight through the powerful encounter with Jesus.
Are we spiritually blind? All three readings invite us to answer this question today. So, what is spiritual blindness? Not ready to see God and His presence filled healing power in day today life. We all have blind spot to be healed such as excluding others, looking down on others, ignoring women and children, not respecting the other religion, beliefs around us, relating with others seeing their status, and considering ourselves better than others, and the list could be endless.
After the demise of his beloved wife, A 92-year-old man was going to the nursing home. He waited a long time while the paper works were done. A nurse came near him and started giving a visual description of his tiny room him in the nursing home. He was full of smile and enthusiasm of an eight-year-old who met her cute puppy first time and told her, “I love it.”, and immediate the nurse told him that we have not even seen the place or reached it. He said: “That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” he replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged … it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the parts that do work. “Each day,” he continued, “is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I’ll focus on a new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away…just for this time in my life. Old age, you see, is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you’ve put in.”
“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” (Ps. 145:18).
Stages of healing from our spiritual blindness: 1. A deep desire to be healed. 2. Humble admission of our blindness. 3. A strong desire to see the truth and reality. 4. A strong faith in Jesus and His healing power. 5. Willing to follow Jesus.
To be blind gives some pleasure and advantages of being looked after by others. So, most of us love to stay blind. Do we really want to see? Let us go through the process of healing and follow Jesus.
We can be legally blind, physically blind, spiritually blind. In today’s readings deal with spiritually blind.
Faith is an experience of meeting the Lord not for mere healing but for loving. The longing to see God never dies in our lives no matter whatever the situation we go through in our life. That is Jesus told the blind beggar that his faith has healed him. To be healed we need to know the problem, name the problem, and believe the Lord who has power to heal. Of course, God knows our needs, and yet he says, “Ask and you will receive.” “Your heavenly Father will surely give to those who ask.”
Today’s gospel is the story of a blind man, a blind beggar. Yet, he could feel and hear the footsteps of Jesus even amidst a noisy crowd. If we have the longing to be healed, then our ears are attentive to the One who has the power to heal, however noisy and disturbing our lives could be.
A blind man was invited to attend a wedding. The young couple were being married in a village church well known for its architecture and its beautiful grounds. The guests were commenting on all of this at the reception afterwards and how they were struck by how well the church, the grounds and the setting all looked. When the blind man heard all this, he thought to himself, ‘But didn’t they hear the bell?’ For him, the church bell that pealed to welcome the bride and groom had been magnificent. The air was filled with its vibrating jubilation. He was amazed at the atmosphere of joy and celebration the bell had created for the occasion. Everyone else seemed to have missed that element. Although he could not see, perhaps because he could not see, his hearing was very alert. He heard the beauty that others missed. The sounds that passed others by touched him very deeply.
Do we hear the Lord in His Eternal Word?
Faith of this poor beggar put a break to the journey of Jesus, He was hurrying from Jericho to Jerusalem. Jesus was not that impressed by the noise praises and applause of the crowd; He could hear the unnoticed cry of the poor man. Whoever or whatever try to shut our tears, prayers and pleading, Jesus gently asks us with a personal question “What do you want me to do for you?”
Last week we heard James and John, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Their answer revealed a self-centred ambition, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory?’
‘Master, let me see again.’ In answering his prayer, Jesus addressed him as a man of faith, ‘your faith has saved you.’
What will we ask Jesus?
True missionary hears, understands, accepts, and shares the message of hope, the Word of God with others. He cried out to Him using a Christological title, Son of David and was able to draw the attention of Jesus. Jesus gradually opened the eyes of his disciple about His identity and mission and invited a blind and poor beggar to become a disciple after being healed.
May the Lord heal our blindness so that we may lead others to the Light, Jesus Himself. God bless you.