Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 25 October 2015

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I find it difficult to understand what it must be like to be blind. I've been shortsighted since I was young, on the whole not too bad, though it made sports like Rugby and Cricket unpleasant because without glasses all I could see was a blur! But I have experienced pitch-blackness on odd occasions a disconcerting and very disorienting experience, fumbling and stumbling helplessly towards what I hoped was a door or a way out. Is blindness like that? I don't know!

The fact you can read this means you too, like me have sight, and we can thank God for that gift precious as it is, but that doesn't mean we are not blind to things in another way. Seeing doesn't mean we notice things correctly or understand what is before us, in fact we are often very unappreciative of what is right in front of our eyes.

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, was in some sense much more in tune with what was going on in Jericho than many of the seeing crowd. Somehow he had developed an inner sight, maybe years of begging, years of living by his wits had sharpened his other senses, including an awareness of God, for he calls Jesus 'the Son of David', 'Rabbuni', the 'Master ' he knows can heal him. His demand is bold and direct, he has no need to hide because for him the darkness meant that relationships with others has been words and gestures that try to reach out and touch them. But Bartimaeus is the one who 'sees' salvation given in Jesus!

Isn't this what we really want in our relationship with Jesus, the ability to call him, reach out to him especially when our faith is in darkness, when we, as sometimes happens, feel alone, lost, fearful of what is going on in our lives, or when our world is turned upside down through sickness, sorrow and death. We all feel this so poignantly when we hear and see the images of the Syrian refugees, or our Middle Eastern Christian brothers and sisters suffering persecution and martyrdom on a daily basis today.

In these images we hear the Christ of the lost calling for us to reach out in courage, but we also find there our true selves, asking that we may see Jesus whom we love. And He will heal us!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Great Britain.