God's Message For You Today - May 27, 2010

Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1
1 Pt 2:2-5, 9-12

Beloved:

Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk

so that through it you may grow into salvation,

for you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings

but chosen and precious in the sight of God,

and, like living stones,

let yourselves be built into a spiritual house

to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices

acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,

a holy nation, a people of his own,

so that you may announce the praises of him

who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Once you were no people

but now you are God’s people;

you had not received mercy

but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners

to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul.

Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles,

so that if they speak of you as evildoers,

they may observe your good works

and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Ps 100: 2, 3, 4, 5

Responsorial Psalm

R. (2c) Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.

Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;

serve the LORD with gladness;

come before him with joyful song.

R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.

Know that the LORD is God;

he made us, his we are;

his people, the flock he tends.

R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

his courts with praise;

Give thanks to him;

bless his name.

R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.

The LORD is good:

his kindness endures forever,

and his faithfulness, to all generations.

R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.

Mk 10:46-52

Gospel

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.
On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say,
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”
Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.

Comment: P. Ramon LOYOLA Paternina LC (Barcelona, Spain)

Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me!

Today, Christ comes out to meet us. We are all just like Bartimaeus: the blind beggar, by whose side Jesus passed by, and who started to call him out until the Lord stopped and called him. We may have a more advantaged name... but our human weaknesses (moral) resemble the beggar's blindness. We cannot see either that Christ lives amongst our brothers and, thus, we treat them as we do. Perhaps, we fail to see in the social injustices, in the structures of sin, what through our eyes, is a scathing call for social commitment. Perhaps we do not fully grasp that «there is more joy in giving than in receiving», that «Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends» (Jn 15:13). What is nitid looks obscure to us: that the mirrors of the world lead to frustration, and that the paradoxes of the Gospel, after their hardships, bear fruits, fulfillment and life. We truly are visually weak, and this is not an euphemism, but a true fact: our will, weakened by the sin, dims the truth in our intelligence making us pick out what is not suitable for us.

Solution: start calling out, like the beggar, that is, humbly pray «Jesus, have mercy on me!» (Mk 10:48). And shout all the louder the more they scold you, the more they discourage you, the more you get dispirited: «Many people scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he shouted all the louder...» (Mk 10:48). To call is also to beg: «Master, let me see again!» (Mk 10:51). Solution: to grow in our faith and beyond our certitude, trust in who loved us, created us and came to redeem us and remain amongst us in the Eucharist.

Pope John Paul II said the very same with the example of his life: his long hours of meditation —so many that his Secretary complained that he prayed “too much”— tell us clearly that «he who pray changes History».