Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 24 October 2021

Renewing the Church! Abbaye de Baume les Messieurs Jura, France. Image RG

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

We certainly don't live in ordinary times, for all around us voices call us to pay attention, signs and symbols push us to look harder at our world, the dissonance of the wide variety of problems and issues, not least our planets' survival and our need to respond is possibly a bit too much to take in at once, yet all is not doom, all is not lost, the Word that is Christ still speaks to us, the Holy One reaches into human life and calls us to prepare again for the fullness of the Kingdom even yet here amongst us. Eden is not destroyed for in the mess of our making clear pictures of God's love emerge still. However, and that is a big word, we have work to do. In our first reading this morning, the reluctant prophet Jeremiah utters this oracle of the Most High, but remember he himself is in a safe space, he utters this to all those who are not:

'Look! I will bring them back
From the land of the north;
I will gather them from the ends of the earth,
the blind and the lame in their midst,
Pregnant women, together with those in labour-
an immense throng-they shall return'. (Jer 31:8)

As you hear or read these words, what do YOU think? What is the Compassionate One saying to you today?

One immediate response is perhaps to see the ever faithful presence of God with us as One who also knows all we are going through, this image of those who are vulnerable being brought together may give us a starting point for renewal, particularly if we are involved (and I hope we all will be) for the future of our planet, its environment and life. Firstly it does not suggest that things will go back to the way they were, nor does it offer a magical quality of healing and repair of damage done, but secondly, it offers us a way forward, that is of belonging to a different family to the one we cleave to, this is God's family, in which last are first, the little ones honoured, those with disabilities helped by those who are able bodied, the sinner welcomed, the outcast placed right at the heart of things. This is what we are called to by Jesus isn't it? But it is here in the Prophet Jeremiah's oracle,' all shall return to me'. Is that a vain hope for us?

I would suggest that hearing God speak through Jeremiah, we then reflect on that question, 'how am I responding to God's constant invitation, to the intervention of love and longing we are given in the depths of our hearts and in those moments of encounter unasked for and therefore the more powerful. Jesus in the Gospel cures Bartimaeus of physical blindness. Mark shares with us a powerful and moving exchange. As Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus, the crowd are told to respond:

"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." (Mk 10: 48,49)

Can you see, hear, understand, just what this means? For me at any rate this transference of command is more than significant, it touches us deeply for, it isn't Jesus who gives Bartimaeus courage, it is his people obedient to the command of the Lord. So what you might say! Think, listen, look into your own life, where is it you really find Christ? I hope you will say in several ways, but most commonly where he points out his presence is, in acts of love, forgiveness, kindness, openness to all. In our silent prayer we may meet the Holy One deep in our souls, but this as all the saints will tell you serves us nothing is we have not got that triple love of God, neighbour (and that includes the neighbour of our planet and living creatures) and ourselves. Bartimaeus is healed with the people because Jesus brings them into the miracle reluctantly or not.

So I will end with a sound of hope. I went back to my maternal home of the Jura in France, and there despite all the negativity surrounding Christianity in Europe I did not find what others call 'mission' territory, I found a land still suffused with the touch of Christ shown in the buildings, wayside crosses, angelus bells, the kindness to stranger, the open churches, the flowers at wayside shrines, the candles lit before Our Lady, the celebration of our name days, the lay involvement in the ministry of the Church, the care of religious buildings which speak. And I found renewed hope, we are not a dying faith, but we are called to renew in a new way not alone but together. WE too like Bartimaeus need to be healed in order to truly perceive Christ present still, and we need to listen well, so that with Jeremiah we may find the Lord of All consoling us and encouraging us, let these words of Jesus be our hope this week:

"Go your way; your faith has saved you."
Immediately we received our sight
and followed him on the way" (Mk 10:52)

So: Let us go!

Lectio

From Nostra Aetate

Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions Nostra Aetate
Pope Paul VI. October 28, 1965

5. We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man/woman, created as they are in the image of God. Humanity's relation to God the Father and his relation to us his brothers and sisters are so linked together that Scripture says: "He who does not love does not know God" (1 John 4:8).

No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man/woman and woman/man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against human beings or harassment of them because of their race, colour, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to "maintain good fellowship among the nations" (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all people,(14) so that they may truly be sons and daughters of the Father who is in heaven.(15)

Antoine de Saint Exupery

The Little Prince

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Two thoughts from Etty Hillesum

… all the divisions between people and nations are being removed for me. There are moments when I can see right through life and the human heart, when I understand more and more and become calmer and calmer, and am filled with a faith in God that has grown so quickly inside me that it frightened me at first but has now become inseparable from me. (7 July 1942)

Be gentle with your suffering and it will be gentle with you. It grows with desire and with indignation; it is lulled to sleep by gentleness, like a little child. You have so much love in you; devote all of it to your fellow men, to children, to things, even to yourself and to your pain. (20 October 1941)