The blind man in today’s gospel, says to Jesus, Lord son of David have pity on me, I want to see. I want to see the face of God in each person I meet every day. We want to see God, we want to see the goodness of the Lord, the beauty of god in each person we meet every day. This should be our priority today and for the rest of the week. When I was preparing the preaching today. I asked myself why did the church give us this gospel about the blind man? What is the good news? What is the challenge? Bartimaeus was physically blind, but spiritually he was not, because he has faith in Jesus Christ. At the end Jesus says, your faith has saved you.
Compared to us, we can say that physically we are not blind, but maybe we are spiritually blind. In each person we meet every day there is the beauty of God, the goodness of God. Everyone is important before God, he knows why he created you and I. there is the goodness in each person in the world. But the challenge is, most of the time we don’t see the goodness, we don’t see God’s presence in the person we meet every day. Our anger, our hatred, our prejudice, our evil habits make us blind. Our pride and anger prevent us from seeing the goodness in people we meet every day. Prevent us from seeing God in the people we consider bad, or sinners. When you are angry against your brother it is hard to see the goodness in your people. When you’re angry against your friends or sisters it is very hard to see God, it’s hard to see talents in those people. We are spiritually blind.
Because sometimes we don’t see the goodness in the people around us, we don’t see the blessings God has given us. We are so blessed, God blesses us every day, but sometimes we don’t see what God has given us. We spend our time complaining about what is missing in our lives instead of rejoicing about the blessings we have received from God. Think about life, God has given us life. How many people died yesterday and today but are still alive? How many people die of hunger, yet we have food every day, we have faith, we have the Eucharist, we are so blessed. Sometimes we spend time complaining about what is missing in our life, we are spiritually blind.
Think about Thanksgiving Day, family and friends come together to celebrate, to give God thanks for all the blessings we have received. The next day we go shopping, in doing so we are telling God what he has given us, is not enough, we need more. On Thanksgiving Day, we rejoice, we thank God for family and for all we have, again we go shopping, telling God we need more. We are spiritually blind. We need to ask God, ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to see the blessings god has given us.
We are so busy, every day we work very hard, which is good. To work, pay the bills, to take care of family. Sometimes we forget to pay attention to the feelings of our brothers and sisters. Sometimes we ignore the people suffering around us, even if its in our family. We forget that there are young people that are lost in drugs, we forget that our brothers and sisters need our help, or a visit. We forget that there are people around us that need to be consoled. We are busy. We don’t pay attention sometimes to the cry of the poor, the cry of our brothers and sisters who need our help. In today’s gospel Jesus gives us the example. When he saw the blind man he stopped, he paid attention. He asked the blind man, what do you want me to do for you? The blind man responds, I want to see. Jesus paid attention to the needy people.
What about you and I? Maybe among your relatives, or brother and sisters, there is someone who is facing suffering, you need to stop and pay attention. You need to listen to him. Maybe among your friends there is someone who is facing divorce or depression, you need to stop and pay attention. Maybe among you and your brothers and sisters there is suffering we need to pay attention, be sensitive, more compassionate to the people around us.
Brothers and sisters, today’s gospel is a text for meditation, take time to meditate, take time to see around you, take time to meditate about people who live in your home, your wife, your children, your friends. Maybe they need your visit, they need your care, they need your presence. We pray today, we ask God to give us the grace to become more and more sensitive and more compassionate.
