30th Sunday in ordinary time, Cycle B. Today’s readings: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52

There have been rare instances where blind people regained sight after many years of blindness. As expected, such people make painstaking efforts not only to learn to use their eyes but also to look at the world around them.

Sensing the World, by David Le Breton

In his book Sensing the World, David Le Breton describes the “doubt, despair and depression” that formerly blind people experience as they use their newly developed sense to navigate the world. Sadly, Le Breton claims, some even revert to blindness out of the fatigue of having to “fend off the visible world”. For them, the psychological cost of adjusting to the new reality is too high.

The challenge that formerly blind persons face helps us get a deeper understanding of the miracle recounted by Mark in today’s gospel.

As the story unfolds, we notice that the ones who really were blind were the people in the crowd who rebuke Bartimaeus the blind man, demanding him to stop when he starts calling Jesus to heal him. The blind man had, in fact, already perceived that the one who was passing among them was the promised Messiah who, unlike those around him, could step into his suffering.

The fact that Bartimaeus wanted to see again cannot be underestimated. It is worth looking at all? How often we prefer to turn a blind and refuse to see!

Very often the problem is not that we cannot see but that we refuse to see in the first place

Archbishop Oscar Romero, who gave his life speaking on behalf of the poor and oppressed, once said: “there are things that can only be seen by the eyes that have cried”. The blind man in today’s gospel must have cried often.

The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, by Richard Rohr

Franciscan author Richard Rohr, in his book The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, writes that seeing begins with a change of heart: “We see what we are ready to see, expect to see, and even desire to see.” In practice this means that we must be ready to shift our perception completely, to look at reality in a new way that will radically transform our way of thinking, behaving and relating with others.

The cloak that the blind man clutched in his hands was his world. It provided him with warmth when he slept under the stars on cold nights, and offered him shade when he begged under the scorching sun. In it he held the coins that passers-by tossed to keep him quiet. That dirty and tattered cloak was not only the only thing that he possessed, it was even his identity. This cloak Bartimaeus enthusiastically casts off even before he is healed, ready to embrace a new identity of freedom that only Christ can give.

When St Ignatius of Loyola lay in bed recovering from a severe war injury, he became aware of desires that drew him towards goodness, love and generosity, and desires that pulled him in the opposite direction. That awareness was the beginning of a new journey. He claims in his autobiography that “his eyes were opened a little”. To use meme lingo, he could not unsee what he had seen.

Very often the problem is not that we cannot see but that we refuse to see in the first place. Truth scares us. G.K Chesterton’s Father Brown tells the adventures of the affable priest who always stumbles into a crime scene and which he solves thanks to his insights into human nature sharped by years of listening in the confessional. In one eerie scene we see him with his good old friend inspector Flambeau, trying to locate a lost body in the gardens of the Castle of Glengyle. The following exchange occurs: “Go on,” said the priest very gently. “We are only trying to find the truth. What are you afraid of?” “I am afraid of finding it,” said Flambeau.

May we never be afraid of opening our eyes to see the truth that God wants us to see.

carlo.calleja@um.edu.mt