Gospel reflection 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B

Today I was going to go to the parish for mass but since I was up before 9 I decided to go to Bolton for 10 mass instead. And I was glad that I did, the homily really hit a spot. The chief celebrant of the mass was Fr. Michael. The Gospel of the day was from St Mark's Gospel, the healing of Bartimaeus who was blind.

I have heard this Gospel before and I think we looked at it in religion class in school. But I always understood it as simply an encounter between Jesus and the blind man Bartimaeus. Thanks to Fr. Michael I now understand there is a lot more to this Gospel than a simple encounter. On this note, I remember that not all the stories in the Gospels literally happened. I feel that the encounter in this Gospel did happen. However, the Gospel has more to teach the reader and the listener.

For me, there are two major aspects of this Gospel. First of all, we see the faith portrayed by the blind man Bartimaeus. After he first shouted out at Jesus he was scolded and told to be quiet, the people saw him as trying to bother Jesus. But he knew this was Jesus and that Jesus could heal him so he shouted even louder. It was the faith of Bartimaeus that encouraged him to persist in trying to get the attention of Jesus even though he had been told to stop. In life, it can be difficult to have faith, faith in God, faith in ourselves and faith in others. The Gospels tell us how God worked through Jesus but the Gospels also have messages about how we need to be with ourselves. One of the most important relationships we have in life is the relationship with self. We cannot expect to be able to trust in others if we do not have faith in our own abilities. We cannot have a good relationship with others unless the relationship that we with self is good. If we have a good relationship with God we learn how to trust ourselves, for with God we are stronger.

The other aspect of this Gospel is that Jesus healed the blind man. Reflecting on Fr Michael's homily I do not think this Gospel is just about how God healed one man. Physically one man was healed of blindness but how many people were spiritually blind to the ability of Jesus? As Christians, I feel that our relationship with God is often one of blindness. We can go to mass, pray and read Scripture but outside of that in our everyday lives we are blind to the presence of God. There is so much war, violence and hunger in the world I feel people can be forgiven for being blind to His presence, He cannot be there in such evil and oppression. If we have a really good relationship with God our relationship with ourselves and others will be positive. As human beings we are not perfect, we make mistakes, lose patience and sometimes we make a complete mess of everything. However, if we let ourselves carry God everywhere with us we can see through the imperfections of others and see the good, God is good, all goodness can see is goodness. We were all created in the image of God. This means that we are good. With God, we can be more patient with others and more understanding. With a deep relationship with God, truly knowing Him, we will not go through life blind.

Something Fr Michael said reminded me that God does extraordinary things through ordinary people. We can do extraordinary things if we let God work through us.