'We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard.' Sunday Reflections, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

Christ Healing the Blind (detail)

Lucas van Leyden [Web Gallery of Art]

Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind . . .  (Jeremiah 31:8; First Reading).

World Mission Sunday

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 10:46-52 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Christ Healing the Blind

Nicolas Colombel [Web Gallery of Art]

World Mission Sunday is observed on the second-last Sunday in October. This year's theme is We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard (Acts 4:20).

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar in today's gospel, is an example of someone who cannot but speak about what he has heard, though not seen. He proclaims to the crowd who Jesus is: And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

Clearly, Bartimaeus had heard from others about Jesus, individuals who lived by the words yet to be writtine in the Actos of the Apostles, We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard. Bartimaeus was a person on the fringes of society but with a determined streak in him. Though initially rebuffed by some who were following Jesus, he was encouraged by others when Jesus said Call him. They encouraged him: Take heart. Get up; he is calling you. Then Jesus showed Bartimaeus the exquisite courtesy of asking him, What do you want me to do for you? Jesus didn't say, I will restore your sight. He invited the blind man to articulate his need.

This tells us something about prayer of petition. God invites us to express our need, even though He knows what it is. And, as in a number of other healing stories where someone approached him Jesus said to Bartimaeus, Go your way; your faith has made you well. But St Mark indicates that he didn't 'go his way'. Rather, he followed him on the way.

In this incident Bartimaeus, without being aware of it, is a missionary. Having heard about Jesus from other 'anonymous missionaries', he cannot but speak about what he has seen and heard.

In 2005 I had an experience something like this, not from a blind beggar but from a 14-year-old girl whom I will call 'Gloria' - not her real name - who was the daughter of a blind beggar. I met her in a home for girls in Metro Manila run by the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family. Most of the 25 or 30 girls there had been living on the streets with their families.

I knew from the Sisters that Gloria suffered from asthma and that her family had been living on the streets. Later, after my conversation with her, they told me that her father was a blind beggar, like Bartimaeus. 

I was totally unprepared for the question Gloria asked me expressing her need: How can I offer my life to God? It is a question that still stuns me more than 16 years later. Not the question itself but the fact that it came from a young girl with absolutely nothing in life.

I tried to tell her that in time God would show her what He wanted her to do with her whole life but that right now He was asking her to do everything she did out of love for others. When she was cleaning or setting the table or washing the dishes or sweeping the floor she could do this with love for the other girls and the Sisters. I was trying to share with her the 'Little Way' of St Thérèse of Lisieux as I understood it. These were ways in which she could offer her life to God right now.

I also told Gloria that by taking care of herself, of her body, she would be doing what God wanted her to do right now. 'Even in the bathroom?' she asked. 'Even in the bathroom', I responded.

I have told the story of Gloria in places as far from each other as the Cathedral of Mary Immaculate Parish in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, to parishes in Melbourne, Australia, and Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, Canada. God granted me the grace to experience His presence in Gloria and in her question. The words We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard were spoken by St Peter and St John when they were brought before the religious authorities for healing a lame beggar in the name of Jesus at the gate of the Temple. Acts 4:13 shows how the religious authorities perceived the two apostles: Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

These men were hostile to the apostles but they saw the truth, though they rejected it. I too saw the reality of Gloria's background of utter poverty. And in my astonishment at her question I recognized that she had been with Jesus. Through her question she was sharing with me her faith in Jesus. And I, in trying to respond, was sharing my faith in Jesus with her.

I've no idea where Gloria is now. I know that a year or two after our conversation she went to live with relatives in one of the provinces near Manila. She is about 30 now. I often pray for her and invite you to do the same.

Fr Sean Brazil, a Columban who died on 8 October at the age of 89, tells a lovely story from his time in Korea starting at 2:43 in the video here.

Father Sean started fundraising for a new church. The first donation he received was a piggy-bank from a girl of about ten. He asked her why she had brought this gift for the new church. She answered, When I'm a grandmother and we walk by that church with my grandchildren, I can say I put the first brick in that church.

Each of us can make the same request of Jesus that Bartimaeus did: Rabbi, let me recover my sight - and we might add 'my hearing'. I mean the grace to see and hear God's presence in the fabric of our daily life. This is the life that Jesus lived for thirty years before beginning his public mission. So many around us, like Gloria and the little girl in Korea, without being aware of it, are living the words of the Acts of the Apostles and the theme of this year's World Mission Sunday, We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard.

African Credo - I Believe

Composed by Jude Nnam

Catholic Television Nigeria

Thanks again to The Catholic Thing for drawing this to my attention to this video filled with the joy of our faith.

Jesus asks, 'What do you want me to do for you?' Sunday Reflections, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Christ Healing the Blind (detail), Lucas van Leyden [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Mark 10:46-52 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)

They came to Jericho. As Jesus 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.

Fr John Burger is an American Columban who served as a member of the Columban General Council from 2006 until 2012. He spent the early years of his priesthood in Japan and tells a wonderful story about a blind man who was a member of a prayer group in a parish where he served. Each week the group met to share on the following Sunday’s gospel and to pray. Father John was a little nervous when this Sunday’s gospel came up, wondering how his blind friend would respond.

He and the others were astonished when the man shared that this was one of his favourite passages in the gospels. Why? Because Jesus asked Bartimaeus, What do you want me to do for you? The blind parishioner went on to say that he was quite happy as he was. He had his own apartment and he knew his way around. But if the Lord were to ask him directly, What do you want me to do for you? He would tell him that there were parts of his life where he would like Jesus to shed his light, even though he would hesitate to ask him to do so.

Probably the blind Japanese man had experienced people, with every good intention, wanting to help him when he needed no help. On a pilgrimage to Lourdes in Easter Week 1991 with a group of persons with physical disabilities I shared a room with our leader, Joe, able-bodied, like myself, and Tony and Tom who weren’t. Both needed help in some very personal matters. However, I learned very quickly from Tom not to do something for him when he could do it himself. That was a very good lesson for me.

Jesus didn’t presume that Bartimaeus wanted his sight back. He asked him, What do you want me to do for you? The blind man, who had shouted Jesus, Son of David, a title indicating he was the Messiah, answered, My teacher, let me see again.

Do I allow Jesus to ask me, What do you want me to do for you? And if I allow him do I have the faith of Bartimaeus to tell him what I want him to do for me? Jesus responded to the faith of the blind man: Go; your faith has made you well. And the blind beggar’s response to this was a further expression of his faith: And immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Christ Healing the Blind, Nicolas Colombel [Web Gallery of Art]

On 11 October 2012 in hishomily at the Mass marking the opening of the Year of Faith and the 5oth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council Pope Benedict said, The Year of Faith which we launch today is linked harmoniously with the Church’s whole path over the last fifty years: from the Council, through the Magisterium of the Servant of God Paul VI, who proclaimed a Year of Faith in 1967, up to the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, with which Blessed John Paul II re-proposed to all humanity Jesus Christ as the one Saviour, yesterday, today and forever. Between these two Popes, Paul VI and John Paul II, there was a deep and profound convergence, precisely upon Christ as the centre of the cosmos and of history, and upon the apostolic eagerness to announce him to the world. Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith. The Christian believes in God whose face was revealed by Jesus Christ. He is the fulfilment of the Scriptures and their definitive interpreter. Jesus Christ is not only the object of the faith but, as it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, he is “the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith” (12:2).

Bartimaeus seemed to have grasped something of this, calling Jesus by a Messianic title, Son of David, putting his faith in him and following him on the way.

+++

Fr Cyril Axelrod CSsR is the only deaf-blind priest in the world. He was born profoundly deaf but became blind more than thirteen years ago from Usher Syndrome. He ministers to people who are deafblind and to people who are deaf. You can read about him here. In this video Father Cyril speaks to seminarians.

When I was in secondary school we studied some of the poetry of John Milton, most of which I disliked. But his sonnet On His Blindness was an exception.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

‘Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?’

I fondly ask. But Patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: ‘God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.’

'What do you want me to do for you?' Sunday Reflections, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Christ Healing the Blind, Nicolas Colombel, 1682

Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri, USA [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Mark 10:46-52 (New Revised Standard Version, CatholicEdition, Canada) 

They came to Jericho. As Jesus 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.

+++

Fr John Burger is an American Columban served as a member of the Columban General Council from 2006 until 2012. He spent the early years of his priesthood in Japan and tells a wonderful story about a blind man who was a member of a prayer group in a parish where he served. Each week the group met to share on the following Sunday’s gospel and to pray. Father John was a little nervous when this Sunday’s gospel came up, wondering how his blind friend would respond.

 

He and the others were astonished when the man shared that this was one of his favourite passages in the gospels. Why? Because Jesus asked Bartimaeus, What do you want me to do for you? The blind parishioner went on to say that he was quite happy as he was. He had his own apartment and he knew his way around. But if the Lord were to ask him directly, What do you want me to do for you? He would tell him that there were parts of his life where he would like Jesus to shed his light, even though he would hesitate to ask him to do so.

 

Probably the blind Japanese man had experienced people, with every good intention, wanting to help him when he needed no help. On a pilgrimage to Lourdes in Easter Week 1991 with a group of persons with physical disabilities I shared a room with our leader, Joe, able-bodied, like myself, and Tony and Tom who weren’t. Both needed help in some very personal matters. However, I learned very quickly from Tom not to do something for him when he could do it himself. That was a very good lesson for me.

 

Jesus didn’t presume that Bartimaeus wanted his sight back. He asked him, What do you want me to do for you? The blind man, who had shouted Jesus, Son of David, a title indicating he was the Messiah, answered, My teacher, let me see again.

 

Do I allow Jesus to ask me, What do you want me to do for you? And if I allow him do I have the faith of Bartimaeus to tell him what I want him to do for me? Jesus responded to the faith of the blind man: Go; your faith has made you well. And the blind beggar’s response to this was a further expression of his faith: And immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

 

On 11 October 2012 in his homily at the Mass marking the opening of the Year of Faith and the 5oth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council Pope Benedict said, The Year of Faith which we launch today is linked harmoniously with the Church’s whole path over the last fifty years: from the Council, through the Magisterium of the Servant of God Paul VI, who proclaimed a Year of Faith in 1967, up to the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, with which Blessed John Paul II re-proposed to all humanity Jesus Christ as the one Saviour, yesterday, today and forever. Between these two Popes, Paul VI and John Paul II, there was a deep and profound convergence, precisely upon Christ as the centre of the cosmos and of history, and upon the apostolic eagerness to announce him to the world. Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith. The Christian believes in God whose face was revealed by Jesus Christ. He is the fulfilment of the Scriptures and their definitive interpreter. Jesus Christ is not only the object of the faith but, as it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, he is “the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith” (12:2).

Bartimaeus seemed to have grasped something of this, calling Jesus by a Messianic title, Son of David, putting his faith in him and following him on the way.

+++

Father Cyril Axelrod CSsR  is the only deaf-blind priest in the world. He was born profoundly deaf but became blind more than thirteen years ago from Usher Syndrome. He ministers to people who are deafblind and to people who are deaf. You can read about himhere. In this video Father Cyril speaks to seminarians. 

When I was in secondary school we studied some of the poetry of John Milton, most of which I disliked. But his sonnet On His Blindness was an exception.

Pope Francis meets with persons who are deaf and persons who are blind

On Saturday 29 March Pope Francis had a special audience with persons who are deaf and with persons who are blind. Some at the audience were both deaf and blind, including Fr Cyril Axelrod CSsR, the only deaf and blind priest in the world, a South African born of Jewish parents.

Here is the text of the News.va report, with my emphasis added.

Vatican City, 29 March 2014 (VIS) – “Witnesses to the Gospel for a culture of encounter” is the theme of the Day of Sharing organised by the Apostolic Movement of the Blind, with the participation of the Gualandi Mission for the Deaf (the Little Mission for the Deaf), as well as the Italian Union of the Blind and Partially-Sighted. These organisations were received in audience this morning by Pope Francis, who commented on the theme of the Day.

“The first thing I observe is that this expression ends with the word 'encounter', but first this presupposes another encounter, the one with Christ. Indeed, to be witnesses of the Gospel, it is necessary to have encountered Him, Jesus. … Like the Samaritan woman. … A witness to the Gospel is someone who has encountered Jesus Christ, who knows him, or rather, who feels known by him: recognised, respected, loved, forgiven, and this encounter … fills him with a new joy, a new meaning for life. And this shines through, is communicated, is transmitted to others”.

“I have mentioned the Samaritan woman because she offers a clear example of the type of person Jesus liked to meet, to make them his witnesses: marginalised, excluded, disdained people. The Samaritan woman was this type, inasmuch as she was a woman, and a Samaritan – the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. But let us think also of the many that Jesus wished to encounter, especially people affected by illness and disability, to cure them and to restore their full dignity to them. It is very important that precisely these people become witnesses to a new attitude, that we can call a culture of encounter. A typical example is the man blind from birth … marginalised in the name of a false idea that he had received a divine punishment. Jesus radically refuses this way of thinking – truly blasphemous! - and performs an act of God, giving him the gift of sight. But the important thing is that this man, as soon as this happens to him, becomes a witness to Jesus and His work, that is the work of God, of life, love and mercy. While the Pharisees, from their safe distance, judges both him and Jesus as 'sinners'; the cured blind man, with disarming simplicity, defends Jesus and in the at the end professes his faith in Him, and also shares his fate: Jesus is excluded, and he is excluded too. But in reality the man enters into a new community, based on faith in Jesus and on brotherly love”.

“Here we have the two opposing cultures. The culture of encounter and the culture of exclusion, of prejudice. The sick or disabled person, precisely because of his or her frailty and limits, may become a witness to this encounter: the encounter with Jesus, that opens us to life and faith, and to the encounter with others, with the community. Indeed, only those who recognise their own fragility and their own limits can build bonds of fraternity and unity, in the Church and in society”, concluded the Holy Father.

Fr Cyril Axelrod CSsR

When I was young the term 'deaf and dumb' was widely used. 'Deaf-mute' is a term still used by some, including this Vatican report which referred to the 'Little Mission for the Deaf Mute'. Indeed, that is the historical name of this congregation whose ministry is exclusively with the Deaf. But the words 'dumb' and mute' come from a misconception of hearing people that those who are deaf are not able to speak. Profoundly deaf people have the capability of speech but very often that is never brought to life because they cannot hear. But youngsters who are profoundly deaf can be taught how to speak.

The word 'dumb' has come to mean 'stupid' because profoundly deaf people were often seen to be such because they shared no common language even with their own family. Deafness isolates, much more so than any other physical disability.

Some persons without any severe disabilities speak of others as being 'differently-abled'. I've never liked that term because it's not true. Deaf people and blind people have the same wide range of abilities as everyone else. Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Andrea Bocelli are three singers who come to mind who have the disability of blindness. but that hasn't prevented them from having successful careers in music. 

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan

Helen Keller, precisely because she was deaf and blind, had an enormous influence on others once she discovered her gifts through the patience of Anne Sullivan, her tutor.

Beethoven 

Portrait by Josef Karl Stieler [Wikipedia]

And Beethoven had become totally deaf by the time he composed his revolutionary Ninth Symphony, the first symphony ever to include singers, with Schiller's Ode to Joy in the last movement. But he didn't hear that music with his ears, only with his mind and memory. Beethoven wasn't 'differently-abled'. He was a musical genius who acquired the disability of deafness as he grew older. This began when he was about 30. For the last ten of his 57 years he was almost totally deaf but continued to compose.

When I was a young priest I studied for a degree in musical education and spent some months as a practice-teacher in two public schools in New York State. The students I had in First Year High School were almost impossible to keep in check. But when I was able to get across to them, despite the noise level, that Beethoven had no hearing when he wrote The Ninth they quietened down and listened, quite awe-struck, to the music. The concluding words of Pope Francis, in a sense, had come true in that instance: Indeed, only those who recognise their own fragility and their own limits can build bonds of fraternity and unity, [in the Church] and in society.

There were no flashmobs in Beethoven's day but I'm sure he wouldn't be unhappy with the Ode to Joy section of his 'Ninth' being played in a public square in Catalonia, Spain, bringing joy to young and old, his music, written nearly 200 years ago when he was already deaf, bringing musicians, singers and listeners out of themselves as it did those noisy 14-year-olds I was trying to teach 42 years ago.

'Surely we are not blind, are we?' Sunday Reflections, 4th Sunday of Lent Year A

Blind Pensioner with a Stick, Van Gogh, November 1882 [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                  

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel John 9:1-41 [or John 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38] (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)  [Shorter form of the Gospel: omit what is in square brackets]

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 

[His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”] 

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 

[ But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”  They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”]

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.  So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

^[The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind;  but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”  His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.  We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.  We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”]

  

They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.  Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

From The Gospel of John

In his homily on the Solemnity of the Annunciation Pope Francis said, Salvation cannot be bought and sold; it is given as a gift, it is free . . . We cannot save ourselves, salvation is a totally free gift.  The Pope continued: Since it cannot be bought, in order for this salvation to enter into us we need a humble heart, a docile heart, an obedient heart like Mary's. Moreover, the model on this journey of salvation is God himself, his Son, who did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, and was obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

All of the people in this Sunday's gospel had been given the gift of faith but only the man who received the gift of sight from Jesus professed his faith openly, his faith in Jesus: Lord, I believe. Not only that, he began to share the gift of his faith with others, most especially the Pharisees who were trying to intimidate him. They proclaimed themselves as disciples of Moses. As such, they should have been prepared for the coming of the Messiah who was now among them.

But they had developed a sense of 'proprietorship' of their faith, a righteous complacency that blinded them to the extent that they dismissed a man who was born blind as a sinner with nothing from which they could learn. The man born blind, on the other hand, has an acute sense of being gifted, by the gift of sight and by the gift of faith. He is an embodiment of the thrust of Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel.

Our Christian faith is a gift that can be lost by an individual and by a whole community. The Church flourished in North Africa and in the Middle East before Islam came into being but the vast majority lost the gift of our faith. In our own lifetime the faith has been rapidly disappearing from places such as Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Quebec. Fifty years ago these places were sending missionaries to every part of the world and their seminaries were full. Now most of the seminaries have been closed down. Just over 100 years ago CICM brothers and priests (Scheut Missionaries, Missionhurst) and ICM Sisters came to the mountains of northern Luzon from a part of Europe that is as flat as a billiard table, most of Belgium and the Netherlands. Recently Belgium made it legal for sick children to be killed, to be put down like sick animals. There was no international reaction to this, though there was to the putting down of a healthy giraffe in a zoo in Denmark.

There still are people in these places and others like them who are living the Christian life faithfully, often heroically. Martyrs such as Fr Ragheed Ganni of Iraq and politician Shahbaz Bhatti of Pakistan are outstanding examples. Another is the late Professor Jérôme Lejeune, doctor and researcher, who in 1959 discovered the cause of Down syndrome (trisomy 21). 

Servant of God Professor Jérôme Lejeune

In so many places in the gospel we find Jesus going out to those considered unimportant such as the blind man in today's gospel. Pope Francis is to have an audience today, Saturday 29 March, with people who are deaf and with people who are blind, the first ever such gathering in the Vatican. And there will probably be some present who are both deaf and blind.

John Milton, who went blind as an adult, in his poem On His Blindness (below) shows an acceptance of what he calls his mild yoke and a sense of our sight and everything else being gifts from God.

Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium No 264 gives us some pointers:

We need to implore his grace daily, asking him to open our cold hearts and shake up our lukewarm and superficial existence . . . How good it is to stand before a crucifix, or on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament, and simply to be in his presence!

The best incentive for sharing the Gospel comes from contemplating it with love, lingering over its pages and reading it with the heart.

Sometimes we lose our enthusiasm for mission because we forget that the Gospel responds to our deepest needs, since we were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters.

The words of Pope Francis suggest a basic attitude of gratitude to God such as we see in the man who tells everyone, One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. 

Somewhat different from the Pharisees' Surely we are not blind, are we?

Which statement/question reflects my stance before God?

       On His Blindness

       by John Milton

       

       When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait."

Antiphona ad introitum  Cf Isaiah 66:10-11

Laetare Jerusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam; 

gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis, 

ut exsultetis, et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae. 

Entrance Antiphon  Cf Isaiah 66:10-11

Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her.

Be joyful, all who were in mourning;

exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.