OMELIE / Omelie EN

27 ott 2024

27/10/2024 - 30th Sunday in O.T. - B

27/10/2024 - 30^th Sunday in O.T. - B

Reading 1 JER 31,7-9 Psalm 125 Reading 2 HEB 5,1-6 Gospel MK 10,46-52

“He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness”: this is how the author of the letter to the Hebrews is explaining himself about the high priest of the temple. He is a man who commits sin like all other men, so every day he needs to ask for forgiveness by offering sacrifices for his own sins.

Jesus instead, being without sin, can offer Himself, and He does so once and for all. His compassion comes to fruition, because His sacrifice is acceptable to God and so the fruit of His compassion is the salvation of men.

Today we have heard an example of Jesus’ compassion. A blind beggar calls out to Him at the top of his lungs. His calling makes His name resound, Jesus, together with one of the titles of the Messiah, “Son of David”. This title, since it is a royal title, startles Jesus’ followers: they are afraid that, if he was to be heard by the guards of the palace Herod had built in Jericho, it would be dangerous both for Jesus and for those who are with Him. But the blind is calling out even louder and he keeps asking for pity as you would do with God.

Someone might think that the beggar is asking Jesus for money: this would be a good reason too to want to silence him, because a master should not be disturbed. Instead Jesus Himself stops, making His whole entourage stop.

He has come into the world, and now He is going to Jerusalem, to offer Himself to the Father for the sinners, so for all men. Why should not He stop to listen to one of them, to serve Him as we would serve great men in the world?

That blind man, small to the eyes of the world, is great to God’s eyes, worthy of His attention. Jesus sends to call Him over: the very people who were rebuking him to silence him, have to go to him and accompany him over. When the blind man realises that Jesus has listened to him, he throws away his cloak, his only valuable property. He is already sure that Jesus will change his life.

His very name has become now significant: Bartimaeus means Son of Timaeus. The latter name is the title of one of Plato’s books, one of the famous Greek philosophers. It is strange and significant that a man called Timaeus might be blind: it is almost like recognising that human wisdom, even philosophical, is not helping, does not illuminate the way, does not feed the human heart; it makes him a beggar, in need of everything and at the mercy of everyone else for everything.

Jesus can save from this situation, free from the need to depend always on what others say or do, free from the emptiness of the ever-changing human philosophies which do not bring to the Father, but only to listen to oneself and to boast about personal intelligence.

The blind, invited by Jesus, shows his faith in Him by asking not for money, but for what he had never been able to ask to anyone else: “Master, I want to see!”.

And the Lord’s Word opens his eyes, to the point that, forgetting his own name, he can start walking and follow Jesus in His journey towards Jerusalem, towards His sacrifice of Himself to God.

They who have their eyes open walk with Jesus, because it is He who fills the life with meaning.

For the blind man now the road is no longer the place where to sit in order to ask others for compassion or for help in order to survive, but it is the place where you can follow Jesus to love and serve together with Him everyone else, to give yourself to God without reservations and enjoy eternal life.