Homily
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Year of Faith
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
28 October 2012
To make the spiritual progress demanded on tonight's Gospel, we have to be able to see ourselves like Bartimaus - as blind, and as a beggar. We started tonight's Mass as we always do, confessing as much. That we are blind as to how to know and love and do the good, and how to hate evil. That we are blind as far as knowing where we are going, and poor in having the resources we need to get there. So we cry out like Bartimaus at the beginning of each Mass, Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. We say it not once, but three times - Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
It is important for us realize that begging for sight and for mercy is the beginning point of holiness, the beginning point of the spiritual life, which is nothing more or less than being close to Jesus, who is holiness incarnate. This is hard for us to get through our thick skulls, however. It is not easy for us to see ourselves in Bartimaus. When was the last time that you encountered a beggar on the street and said to yourself - oh cool, there's someone like me! No, we've been taught in our lives to try to be as self-sufficient as we can be, and to hate vulnerability and dependency. So we usually feel not excited to see a beggar, but uncomfortable and trapped -knowing that the person is like us, and that we should help them because Christ is hidden in them, but also knowing that mostly we do not want to be like them, nor bothered by them. There are feeling of attraction and aversion working within us at the same time.
Yet the path to holiness begins with vulnerability and dependence. Even if we are able to offer a beggar nothing more than a few cents, a kind look or a heartfelt prayer, we should still be glad to have seen them. Not that having more beggars is a good thing, that's not what I'm saying, but insofar as we do encounter them, we should see in them what Jesus saw in Bartimaus - we should see ourselves, and our path to holiness. Mother Teresa was fond of saying that compassion is being able to believe another person's life is as real as your own.
The election of the next president of the United States has spurred so much talk about how a president and government might be able to get America back to work. Especially pertinent to you is how the economy might provide good jobs for new college graduates, so that they can use their education and pursue the American dream. The emphasis has been on jobs, and how Americans can become prosperous and great, and its citizens become self-sufficient, not dependent on government. Yet there has been no little talk about how we take care of one another as well, beginning with the most vulnerable, the unborn, and ending with the vulnerability of old age. The fundamental moral and civil rights issue in any election for a Catholic is the right to life, for the unborn are those least able to provide for themselves. Babies in the womb are so poor in fact, that they have no voice even to cry out, if it is not the voice of the Church and people of good conscience begging on their behalf.
On our part, we should pray, then vote. It is a serious sin for a Catholic not to participate in the politics that affect the common good of so many people. We as Catholics do not run from the world, but seek to transform it with the grace, mercy and truth of Jesus Christ. We are obligated to form our consciences and then to vote if there is a candidate who can best advance the common good, and to pay special attention to candidates who have a commitment and opportunity to defend and promote the right to life of the unborn.
There is nothing wrong with the American dream and American exceptionalism, at least not if they are understood in terms of the flourishing of the human person. Those to whom much is given, much is expected, and the American way of life that champions individual achievement and the expansion of prosperity for more people is a way of multiplying the gifts that God has first given. Yet if progress is only materialistic, not spiritual, then we will see people seeking happiness in a false sense of wealth and security, instead of seeking happiness in the only way it can be realized, through vulnerability and dependence, through the ability to be close to God and to one another, in the vocation to sacrifice and so realize our deepest vocation to love one another as Christ first loved us. Bartimaus as our hero for today shows us the path to spiritual progress, which leads to a happiness not tied to the unemployment rate, but tied to things that consist in the eternal life won for us by Christ - truth, goodness, beauty and unity. Amen.
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Year of Faith
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
28 October 2012
To make the spiritual progress demanded on tonight's Gospel, we have to be able to see ourselves like Bartimaus - as blind, and as a beggar. We started tonight's Mass as we always do, confessing as much. That we are blind as to how to know and love and do the good, and how to hate evil. That we are blind as far as knowing where we are going, and poor in having the resources we need to get there. So we cry out like Bartimaus at the beginning of each Mass, Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. We say it not once, but three times - Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
It is important for us realize that begging for sight and for mercy is the beginning point of holiness, the beginning point of the spiritual life, which is nothing more or less than being close to Jesus, who is holiness incarnate. This is hard for us to get through our thick skulls, however. It is not easy for us to see ourselves in Bartimaus. When was the last time that you encountered a beggar on the street and said to yourself - oh cool, there's someone like me! No, we've been taught in our lives to try to be as self-sufficient as we can be, and to hate vulnerability and dependency. So we usually feel not excited to see a beggar, but uncomfortable and trapped -knowing that the person is like us, and that we should help them because Christ is hidden in them, but also knowing that mostly we do not want to be like them, nor bothered by them. There are feeling of attraction and aversion working within us at the same time.
Yet the path to holiness begins with vulnerability and dependence. Even if we are able to offer a beggar nothing more than a few cents, a kind look or a heartfelt prayer, we should still be glad to have seen them. Not that having more beggars is a good thing, that's not what I'm saying, but insofar as we do encounter them, we should see in them what Jesus saw in Bartimaus - we should see ourselves, and our path to holiness. Mother Teresa was fond of saying that compassion is being able to believe another person's life is as real as your own.
The election of the next president of the United States has spurred so much talk about how a president and government might be able to get America back to work. Especially pertinent to you is how the economy might provide good jobs for new college graduates, so that they can use their education and pursue the American dream. The emphasis has been on jobs, and how Americans can become prosperous and great, and its citizens become self-sufficient, not dependent on government. Yet there has been no little talk about how we take care of one another as well, beginning with the most vulnerable, the unborn, and ending with the vulnerability of old age. The fundamental moral and civil rights issue in any election for a Catholic is the right to life, for the unborn are those least able to provide for themselves. Babies in the womb are so poor in fact, that they have no voice even to cry out, if it is not the voice of the Church and people of good conscience begging on their behalf.
On our part, we should pray, then vote. It is a serious sin for a Catholic not to participate in the politics that affect the common good of so many people. We as Catholics do not run from the world, but seek to transform it with the grace, mercy and truth of Jesus Christ. We are obligated to form our consciences and then to vote if there is a candidate who can best advance the common good, and to pay special attention to candidates who have a commitment and opportunity to defend and promote the right to life of the unborn.
There is nothing wrong with the American dream and American exceptionalism, at least not if they are understood in terms of the flourishing of the human person. Those to whom much is given, much is expected, and the American way of life that champions individual achievement and the expansion of prosperity for more people is a way of multiplying the gifts that God has first given. Yet if progress is only materialistic, not spiritual, then we will see people seeking happiness in a false sense of wealth and security, instead of seeking happiness in the only way it can be realized, through vulnerability and dependence, through the ability to be close to God and to one another, in the vocation to sacrifice and so realize our deepest vocation to love one another as Christ first loved us. Bartimaus as our hero for today shows us the path to spiritual progress, which leads to a happiness not tied to the unemployment rate, but tied to things that consist in the eternal life won for us by Christ - truth, goodness, beauty and unity. Amen.
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