October 25, 2015
- Bartimaeus is a desperate person, blind, begging, sitting on a public road and screaming out to passers by. He might be arrested in Melbourne. Or, at least, people are going to pass him by as quickly as they can.
- He will get no attention from the average person who does not want to get involved with such odd balls who they find an embarrassment.
- It is like a lot of people in our society. When they are down in their luck or start acting differently from us, we do not want anything to do with them.
- I often think that it’s a blessing to be young; people are interested in you; you can act a bit weird and people think its funny or unique; you get away with most things and your energy and vitality are attractive. All the more if you have beauty, intelligence and talent.
- But, just as life is opening for the young (though they do not always see it that way); life is narrowing and closing down for the old, even the middle aged.
- And for Bartimaeus it’s a gloomy future that he looks at.
- But he has not given up. In this he shows his faith and hope. Instead he cries out to Jesus to stop, take notice of him and hear him out. He then asks for his sight to be restored.
- He is bold and he is brave.
- And when his sight is restored he rejoices.
- But I wonder whether it is the vision – the new sight – that makes Bartimaeus happy?
- We always think that we will be happy if we have good health; lots of opportunities; success and even wealth.
- We rejoice in youth and prosperity. But what about anchoring our life on faith in Jesus?
- Are we proud to be Catholic Christians? Is it our faith in Jesus Christ that counts most in life? Or are we more cultural Catholics? Family Catholics? School Catholics?
- Christians by obligation.
- Bartimaeus gives us a lesson on the richness and joy of faith.
- He is also an example that, although we can see clearly, we do not necessarily have vision.
- There are plenty of people with good eyes but they do not see very clearly in matters of life.
- They cannot see the dangers of sin; the injustice of having too much at the expense of others; the damage of premature sexual relations; the immorality of shady business dealings.
- They have a real problem with seeing that has nothing to do with their eyes.
- When I watch Television I rarely stray from the ABC or SBS but just the other evening I went to all free to air TV.
- I am getting old but I try to resist being a whiner about contemporary society.
- However, I was truly stunned by the language now permitted in programming.
- More than that, the program, “What do people really do in Thailand?”, left me aghast.
- It was about the drinking, sex, indulgence and irresponsibility of whole groups/tours spinning around Phuket and elsewhere, as there was no tomorrow.
- Filling life with limit experiences and taking experience to the periphery of danger.
- I thought to myself that its just me and went back to Agatha Christi or something equally staid like Midsommer Murders.
- The gospel today stresses both the importance of joy from faith and the necessity to see a moral dimension to living life.
- These are more important than the things we think will make us happy.
- In this sense, this simple gospel, goes to the heart of what it is to be a serious Christian.
- It calls us to put faith in Jesus first. Not a culture of cynicism about values; not a society that portrays risky experiences as ultimate achievements and not even an education that fails to remain critical towards prevailing knowledge. And certainly not a life that blindly follows others in a herd mentality.
- When religion becomes an optional extra, no longer at the heart of life, we have the voice of Bartimaeus, shouting out for a sight that is also a vision of life. Too few seem able to present this vision to the people of today.