Bartimaeus

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(proofread)

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my Father, and Lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.

They reached Jericho, and as he left Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, that is the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road. Our Lord is on his way to Jerusalem and enters Bartimaeus, a famous person that we have heard about down through the centuries, a particular person God wants us to look at, to learn from, and to know about.

A blind beggar, not particularly noticeable, not particularly important, but suddenly he comes to occupy center stage. He was sitting at the side of the road. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and cry out, “Son of David, Jesus have pity on me! “

Bartimaeus lived in complete darkness, but somehow, he sensed the light. He had a tremendous desire for the light, for clarity, for a cure. A desire for the light as we have also a desire for the light, for truth, for beauty, for the fulfillment of the mission, for all the things that our heart yearns for.

But in Bartimaeus, it was there in a deeper interior sort of physical way. And he somehow sensed that this was his moment. Christ is passing by. He senses the importance of the moment.

St. Paul says we have been chosen out before the foundation of the world. If we have been chosen out before the foundation of the world, then there are certain moments in our life that have also been chosen, particular moments of opportunity, of joy, of insight, of clarity and God gives each one of us those sort of moments, maybe on a retreat, maybe on a recollection, maybe in a certain point in our studies or things we are learning or reading a book, moments when suddenly things come clear, or clearer, or they go deeper.

And so Bartimaeus has this sense of the moment, a life-changing experience is about to happen. Well, we all have certain life-changing experiences. Yesterday I was in rural Nyamira, again visiting that farmer that I told you about a month or so ago, and there are some ladies in Singapore who make dresses for children, and I happened to bring along one of these small dresses. There was a three-year-old little girl there and her mother put it on and she looked beautiful and we took a photo and she looked a bit like the cat who stole the cream, so happy in her new dress, beautiful little photo and it fitted perfectly.

Well, sometimes God gives us these little experiences that are rich, beautiful, and special. Bartimaeus somehow sensed this moment. He began to shout and to cry out: “Son of David, Jesus have pity on me.” He realizes the importance of this moment; he couldn't have missed this moment.

Very important that we are attentive to those sorts of moments when they come along, so we're not distracted or thinking of something else, but we catch what's flying. He had been longing and longing for this opportunity, and now our Lord has come within range of his voice.

We know that Jesus always listens to us. He's always available, He's close to us, and He's beside us. But there may be moments when He listens to us in a special way, and now Bartimaeus is particularly aware that I have the ear of the Master. He can hear me, and so nothing in the world is going to silence him, because this is the great moment that he's longing for.

And then you have a contrast. We’re told many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet. He was breaking through the atmosphere. He was disturbing the environment. He wasn't eco-friendly. He was disturbing all the people around there, who were very focused on our Lord and enjoying themselves, and he was just a blind beggar. He was nobody. He was Mr. Unimportance. So, what are you doing making all this noise? You be quiet, you know your place. But we're told he shouted out all the louder.

Each one of us is Bartimaeus. He faces the challenges of his environment. He faces the negativity of the people around him, the discouraging remarks, the stone faces, and the lack of interest. He has to break through all of that. Each one of us in our spiritual life, in our apostolate, in the fulfillment of our mission, well we have to face the same type of indifference. Indifference can be difficult to handle, and one of the challenges that God places around us is often an environment of indifference, but our Lord has sent us to set the world on fire.

What Bartimaeus is saying and doing is going to be recorded for all eternity. He's going to be remembered, they’re going to be forgotten. He has to sort of earn that place in history. So he doesn't listen to them, doesn't pay any attention to them. He shouts it out all the louder because he knew this was important.

When we realize that we have the truth, we have the answers. We have the solutions to many problems in the world. We understand the realities of eternity. We know the pathway to heaven. We know the very relative value of many things on this earth. We know the problems of a materialistic culture, the dangers when the dignity of the human person, the dignity of the family, of women when every person is not proclaimed, we know the dangers, the evil of all these things.

Well, like Bartimaeus we have to shout all the louder and find ways and means. Make that message heard, make ourselves heard because we're not just shouting for ourselves, we're shouting for truth, for beauty, ultimately for God and so he shouted out all the louder: “Son of David, have pity on me.”

We can be reminded that our Lord is always within range of our voice. Our voice can always reach him, our prayer. He's passing by, close to us and we shouldn't be afraid to call to him. The example of Bartimaeus, well, a great example for us, not to miss the chance, not to miss the opportunity.

Every time we go to some means of formation, or a recollection, or retreat, or circle, well, we have an opportunity. For each time we turn to our Lord in prayer, or in our spiritual reading, each of the norms of our spiritual life is an opportunity, not to miss the chance, the chance for something greater, some treasure, some gem that our Lord wants to communicate to us, possibly in a get-together, or in a conversation with somebody.

And Jesus stopped. Suddenly the narrative changes. They were on their way to Jerusalem, but Jesus stopped. The words of Bartimaeus are beginning to have their effect. Our Lord changes his plans. Suddenly the people around our Lord, who have told Bartimaeus to be quiet, well, now they're the ones that have to be quiet. Our Lord has heard the voice of someone that he wants to talk to, engage in, develop, and give attention to.

So, they called the blind man over. Courage, they said, get up, he's calling you. So now they encourage him. St. Paul says everybody needs encouragement, keep encouraging one another. St. Augustine says that we should call out to Jesus with our prayers and with our good works.

Sometimes our good works, our actions, well, they reach the heart of Christ. We show him with our deeds that we're serious about what we're asking for. Those include the works of charity, our professional work done well, our contrite confession of our sins, and our purity of soul.

So, our Lord is listening, and in this whole process, Bartimaeus is obtaining his heart's desire. Like that little girl with her new dress, he obtained something wonderful, something beautiful, something rich. Jesus stopped and said: “call him here.” So, they called the blind man. “Courage,” they said, “get up, he's calling you.” So, throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus. Very dynamic. He throws off his cloak like he throws off his old life. He sheds the baggage that he has been carrying, because now there's a new beginning that's going to totally change everything, he’s going to be able to see.

We can thank our Lord with greater frequency for the great gifts he's given to us, that we may take for granted too much. The gift of sight, the gift of hearing, our limbs, wonderful things that he hasn't given to anybody.

And Bartimaeus senses that something great is coming. Our Lord has heard the cries of Bartimaeus from the start. He didn't stop immediately, He wanted him to keep asking, He wanted him to shout all aloud, and He wanted the people around him to go through what they went through, seeing how unimportant Bartimaeus was, but now Bartimaeus takes center stage. It's a great demonstration of the mercy of Christ, how his heart reaches out to everybody, how everybody is important, every person in the world.

We proclaim the dignity of the human person and the dignity of the sick and really the social teaching of the church has been proclaiming this in the world for 20 centuries. The whole healthcare outreach to all sorts of people with all sorts of sicknesses and diseases has its origin in the mercy of Christ that reaches out to everybody. Every disease and sickness and infirmity is there to be treated or to be cured, but our Lord wanted to use this blind beggar to give us a graphic example of perseverance in prayer.

Bartimaeus perseveres, doesn’t give up, he’s not put off by the discouragement of the people around him. He gets even greater strength and insistence from that, because he knows what he wants and because he knows that this is the Christ. This is worth everything, it’s worth staking everything for this, to follow Jesus, to fall in love with him, to be close to him.

Bartimaeus has a great sense of treasure. He says: “May you give me a great sense of treasure in my Christian vocation, great sense of treasure in the truths that you've given to me in my formation, in my education, in the spirit of the Work, in the spirit of Christianity, in the treasure of the things that the Holy Father is saying, help me to savor every little piece of this treasure, to know it better and more all the time, so that like Bartimaeus I throw off my old life and I begin again, continually with new beginnings, great things.”

And so now he finds himself in a dialogue with our Lord. How important is our dialogue with Christ? It's a marvelous dialogue, a dialogue that each one of us has to have with Christ that has to set our hearts on fire because we are also Bartimaeus, we are blind, and there are things we don't see.

Our pride blinds us to our defects and to maybe many other things. So Christ now, who is God, begins to speak to him and says to him: “What do you want me to do for you?” Our Lord knows what he wants him to do, what he yearns for, what he's been waiting for, but he wants to hear it from him, his personal prayer, his personal petition.

St Josemaria says the blind man answers: “Lord that I may see.” St Josemaria loved those words. In Latin, Domine ut videam. They can have a great resonance in our life, because there are so many things that we don't see, that we need to see, interior truths of our soul, aspects of doctrine that the church and God teach us through scripture, through the catechism, that maybe we haven't yet seen. We haven't grasped their totality, their profundity, their beauty, their depth, and the power of those ideas to change the world a little more.

We haven't seen the greatness and the importance of the treasure that God has placed in our hands: Divine Grace, the Sacraments, knowledge of where we've come from, where we're going, what this world is all about, what God is doing in the world at the moment.

There may be things that are communicated to us in spiritual direction, that also we don't see, we haven't seen before, things that possibly have been insisted on over a period of time, but well, too dull a wit, too slow a heart. We're like the apostles. We're like Bartimaeus, totally blind. We need to have the scales fall from our eyes, and so over time, divine grace will work these miracles, we see things clearer, and we go deeper.

Saint Josemaria says the blind man answers: “Lord, that I may see.” “How utterly logical,” he says. And how about yourself, can you really see, haven’t you experienced too at times, what happened to the blind man of Jericho?

I can never forget how when meditating on this passage many years back, and realizing that Jesus was expecting something of me, though I myself did not know what it was, I made up my own aspirations: “Lord, what is it you want, what are you asking of me?”

Those words of Bartimaeus can have a particular interest in our life, because we need to say those same aspirations frequently, Lord, that I may see. And just like those words came to be very important in the vocation of Saint Josemaria, they can be very important in the vocation of each one of us.

There's an Irish farmer who said he got a lot of mileage out of the aspirations that he learned from Saint Josemaria, particularly this one. And he found very interesting practical applications of these aspirations because every day he has to go out to check on his cows. And the cows in the field, sometimes they can rub against a barbed wire fence, and that can open a wound, and the flies can come, and that wound can get infected, and you can get septicemia, and you could lose a cow very quickly.

He wants to watch the cows very carefully. And sometimes he says, those little focal points of infection can be difficult to see, so when I'm looking over the hide of a cow, I find it very helpful to say, “Lord, that I may see,” “Lord, that I may see.”

Well, sometimes we're looking for a paper clip that we have dropped, or I can't find my glasses, or where did I leave my keys? Or where is that little note that I wrote down? Lord, that I may see. It has an application in many situations, in everyday life, in our work, in our interaction with other people, and it has this deeper application.

What are you asking of me, what is it that you want, what do you want to tell me in this meditation, in these days of my life, in this month of October He continues, I had a feeling that he wanted me to take on something new.

And the cry, Lord, that I may see, Master, that I may see, moved me to beseech Christ again and again. Lord, whatever it is that you wish, let it be done. It is now to you that Christ is speaking. Maybe in our apostolate we have to see, to see souls, to see opportunities, to seize those opportunities like Bartimaeus seized the opportunity. To see that we have to get over the difficulties of our environment, or the people, or the things holding us back, or the indifference, or the discouragement of others because there are souls there that are waiting for us.

And when we ask our Lord that we may see, we'll open our eyes to the possibilities, to this soul, to that soul, to see the people are hungry for the things we have to give them. He asks you, “What is it that you want of me?”

“That I may see, Lord, that I may see.” Then Jesus answers: “Away, home with you, your faith has brought you recovery.” And all at once he recovered his sight and followed Jesus on his way.

Following Jesus on his way, you've understood, he said, what our Lord was asking from you, and you have decided to accompany him on his way. And so this dialogue, this Bartimaeus has with our Lord, leads to a profound joy, a messianic joy.

He found the meaning and the purpose of his life. It's all been worthwhile, that waiting, that darkness, that nothingness. Now, everything has changed. St. Paul says: “your sadness will be turned into joy.” We know, with faith, that any little sadness we may have in our life, can all be turned into joy. The difficulties of his life had a great apostolic purpose. Now he becomes an example for the world, for each one of us and he enjoys that messianic joy for eternity.

You are trying to walk in his footsteps, continues St. Josemaria, to clothe yourself in Christ's clothing, to be Christ himself. While your faith, your faith in the light our Lord is giving you, must be both operative and full of sacrifice.

Bartimaeus had great faith in Christ, and he had the sacrifice, the spirit of sacrifice, to forget about his self-esteem and what people think of him. “I'm just a blind beggar on the side of the road,” he shouts out with a great superiority complex.

He had the spirit of sacrifice to cast off the very cloak that was his only possession. Detachment from the past, things that he had, because now he lives in a newness of life, he leaves behind those things that have no more relevance.

“Don't fool yourself,” says St. Josemaria, “don't think you are going to find new ways.” The faith he demands of us, as I have said, we must keep in step with him, working generously and at the same time uprooting and getting rid of everything that gets in the way.

He threw off his cloak, his past life, old habits, and old ways of thinking because now this messianic joy was worth having, the future is fantastic. So Bartimaeus comes to partake in the salvation that will have its fulness in the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, it’s going to change everything.

Our Lord at the same time was attracted by the total blindness and great poverty of Bartimaeus. He exalts him, focuses on him, and lifts him up. Our Lord is going to more than compensate him for his hardships.

If you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him? So it's very optimistic, very positive, exciting.

After his cure, the life of Bartimaeus is totally changed. He followed him along the road. Our Lord wants to use us as instruments to help many people in their blindness, in their materialistic outlook, in their attachment to the things of this world. He wants their lives to be utterly changed.

And we are the instruments, the vehicles for that to happen. And so every apostolic opportunity is important. Every formative activity is important. Bartimaeus became a disciple of the Master.

And so our own personal sufferings, our own personal blindness, our nothingness, can serve as a means for our encounter with our Lord. We can come to follow him with a deeper humility, a greater purity. We can draw closer to him and hear those words that our Lord permits us to hear courage, get up, he's calling you. No matter what our miseries may be, our wretchedness, we may see with greater clarity the passage of time.

Bartimaeus was very aware of how dark his world was. He told in The Forge, in those days, the Gospel tells us, the Lord was passing by and they, the sick, called out to him and sought him. Many people around us were not just physically sick but spiritually sick, we live in a world that is spiritually sick.

Pope Francis, as mentioned recently, remarked about the spiritual emptiness of the world, totally empty. We've come to fill that emptiness. It's a great challenge, a great panorama, a great horizon. Now too, he says, “Christ is passing by in your Christian life. If you help Him, many will come to know Him, will call to Him, will ask Him for help, their eyes will be opened to the marvelous light of grace.”

Every day we have our eyes opened to the marvelous light of grace, the truth of the sacraments, Christ who comes to us in Holy Communion or in the sacrament of confession or in our prayer, it’s a marvelous light.

Lord, that I may see the light, help me to bask in the sunshine of your light. “Lord, help me to see,” he says, “what it is you want of me.” “My lady, help me to see what my Lord wants me to do today, help me to answer his call with generosity.”

Every day our Lord is knocking on the door of our hearts, asking us for something, a little more patience, a little more kindness, a little more industriousness, a little more punctuality or order, or a whole series of other virtues, but he wants something from us today.

He passes by and we know that he will give us light and joy. In the whole of Scripture, we see the mercy of Christ manifested in various ways. He goes about the world doing good, even for those who did not ask for his help. Just as He stopped for Bartimaeus, He stopped for everybody, He has time for everybody, and He's open to everybody.

And Christ is the revelation of the fullness of divine mercy to the neediest. No form of misery can separate men from Christ. He gave sight to the blind, He cured leprosy, He healed the lame and paralytics, He fed hungry multitudes, He expelled demons, and He approached people who had the greatest suffering in soul or body.

And so Christ wants to approach all those who may be suffering from some sickness of soul and lift them up, and we are the ones who have to go to our Lord. Our eyes too have been blind. We may have been like those people laying paralyzed on their mats, incapable of reaching the grandeur of God.

And Christ has reached out to us. And this is why our Lord and Savior, healer of souls, has descended from on high. Divine beauty incarnate. And so Lord, help us to have complete faith in you. You are the one who saved us. You are the divine doctor who has been sent with the express purpose of curing us and curing all the more serious or hopeless illnesses in our life. We have to be strong in faith to realize that we can do everything.

And there might be times in our life when we experience more hardship than usual. There might be moments of greater temptation, greater blindness. We might grow weary in the struggle. We might have periods of interior darkness and trial, and those are the moments when we have to turn to our Lord, who is always passing by close to us. St. Josemaria says we must have a humble and sincere faith, like the sick and the suffering people of the Gospels.

Then we will cry out to the Master, “Lord, put not your trust in me, but I, I put my trust in you.’ Then as we sense in our hearts the love, the compassion, the tenderness of Christ’s gaze upon us, for he never abandons us.

We will come to understand the meaning of the words of St. Paul: My strength is made perfect in your weakness. God has permitted all this misery, all this wretchedness, all this blindness, so that one day we can come to the light and have that light and go forward in the light, so that we can go with him along our way.

We become faithful witnesses to the divine power that shines forth in us and helping that light and that power to shine on many of our souls also and Our Lady who is the morning star, the source of our light who leads us to the light, Mary, may you help us to see with greater clarity all the things He wants us to see.

I thank you my God for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my Father, and Lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me. Amen.

Olv