SOURCE: The Jesuit Post
2021 HOMILY – Persistence in prayer demonstrates that God is always willing to respond to our needs.
SOURCE: Archdiocese of Brisbane Homilies
2021 HOMILY – True vision comes from recognizing our vulnerabilities and seeking divine help, which empowers us to transform despair into hope and serve others as disciples.
- 00:00 Bartimaeus, though physically blind, possessed a deeper vision of life that surpassed those with sight.
- 00:48 Acknowledging Jesus as the ‘Son of David’ marked a significant moment, as it was the first time someone from the community recognized Him as the Messiah, prompting the crowd to silence him.
- 01:15 Acknowledging our vulnerabilities and believing in healing can liberate us from the limitations that hinder our potential.
- 02:10 Humble cries for God’s help and courageous service to the vulnerable transform despair into hope, making us beacons of light through our discipleship.
SOURCE: Fr. Peter Hahn Archive of Homilies
2018 HOMILY – The journey of spiritual healing and growth involves acknowledging our struggles, seeking divine assistance, and deepening our communion with God through faith and the sacraments.
SOURCE: Fr. Jude Thaddeus Langeh Basenbang
2018 HOMILY – The story of Bartimaeus illustrates the transformative power of faith in Jesus, who offers healing and restoration to those suffering from physical and spiritual blindness.
SOURCE: Fr. Kevin’s Homilies
2021 HOMILY – True vision involves recognizing our limitations and embracing humility, which allows for a deeper understanding of the world and a more authentic connection with others.
Bishop Robert Barron
SOURCE: Word on Fire
2021 SERMON – Friends, in today’s Gospel, we hear the marvelous story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus—an icon of tremendous power and a sacred picture of the spiritual life and the process of salvation. We all find ourselves, in our need of Christ, in this image, as our own blindness distorts our vision of spiritual reality and the meaning of life.
SOURCE: Word on Fire
2024 SERMON – Friends, all three readings for this Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time have a golden thread running through them, which is the idea of the call—of the primacy of God’s action in the life of salvation. Whenever we start thinking that this is our own ego project and that we are in command, we are ipso facto on the wrong path.
Deacon Peter McCulloch
On Seeing Clearly
Jer.31:7-9; Heb.5:1-6; Mk.10:46-52
2021 EXCERPT: Helen Keller was only 19 months old when she became deaf and blind. But she still learned to read, write and speak, and she lived a full life.
One day, when a friend returned from a long walk in the woods, Helen asked her what she had seen. Her friend replied, ‘Nothing in particular.’
Helen couldn’t believe it. ‘How is this possible,’ she asked herself, ‘when I who cannot hear or see, find hundreds of interesting things through mere touch? I feel the delicate shape and design of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly over the rough bark of a pine tree. Occasionally, I place my hand quietly on a small tree, and if I’m lucky, I’ll feel the quiver of a bird in full song.’
‘The greatest calamity that can befall people,’ Keller said, ‘is not that they should be born blind, but that they should have eyes, yet fail to see.’
Layers of Blindness
Jer.31:7-9; Heb.5:1-6; Mk.10:46-52
2024 EXCERPT: So, what about you? What’s holding you back from really seeing Jesus? Is it your obsessions? Or laziness? Or fear? Can you let these things go?
Bartimaeus knows he’s blind. But what about you? Lots of people today have blind-spots but don’t know it, for there are layers of blindness.
There’s emotional blindness, moral blindness and cultural blindness. There’s also spiritual blindness, which is much more common than physical blindness. Many people are blind to God’s Creation. They’re blind to Jesus’ love and compassion. They’re blind to the suffering and injustice that surrounds them.
Fr. Andrew Ricci
What do we want from the Lord?
2021 PODCAST: The exchange between Jesus and Bartimaeus reveals the longing within the blind man’s heart: he wants to see! This passage provides insight for us as we ponder the Lord’s question “What do you want me to do for you?” in our lives today.
Fr. Austin Fleming
“Lord, I want to See!”
2018 EXCERPT: TAs you can plainly see, I have corrected vision. I can, of course, see without my glasses – but without them I don’t see very well:
I don’t see very clearly and what I do see is out of focus. In fact, I wear tri-focals and I wear them all the time: one third of my lens helps me see you and things at a distance, another third helps me read a computer screen or newspaper; and another third helps me read a book sitting on the altar
or my homily here at the ambo. But even with my glasses on, I can still make the prayer of Bartimaeus my own: “Lord, I want to see!”
Dominican Blackfriars
2021 EXCERPT: In restoring sight to Bartimaeus, Christ reveals his power over the created world, as he does in all his miracles, and as with all the miracles of healing, he shows that he exercises that power in kindness and love for humanity. More than that, though, in Christ’s words spoken to Bartimaeus we can see how this restoration of sight to a blind man is an image for us of the restoration to humanity of what we have lost through sin, that restoration of the fullness of our humanity which we call salvation.
Fr. Charles E. Irvin
How Do We Respond To Suffering?
EXCERPT: I want to draw four points out of today’s gospel account.
- The first and the most important point is that Bartimaeus knew he was blind. Do we?
- The second observation I have is that those around Bartimaeus tried to hush him up and keep him from Jesus.
- Thirdly, Jesus stopped everything to pay personal attention to him.
- Finally I want to note that after Bartimaeus received his sight he followed in Jesus’ footsteps,
Fr. Leon Ngandu, SVD
Fr. Leon Ngandu, SVD
What Discipleship Entails
EXCERPT: Our Gospel text is a narrative story through which Mark teaches his readers what discipleship entails. Discipleship is a determination to initiate a personal encounter with Jesus through prayer. (46-47). It entails perseverance in prayer. It requires using spiritual ears, as Jesus did, to hear the people of God who are in need (v. 49a). It is becoming Jesus’ mediators who tell people, encourage them, and help them to go to God and start their personal relationships with him (v. 49b). Discipleship requires getting rid of anything (sins and possessions) that obstructs the personal relationship with God (v. 50). Discipleship is following Jesus not temporarily but permanently (v.52).
Fr. George Smiga
Living a Second Time Around
2003 EXCERPT: What if you could live your life over? What if you had a second chance to live life again? What would you change? What you keep the same? Or to put it terms of today’s gospel, what would you want to see differently?
The cry of Bartimaeus in today’s gospel is “Lord, I want to see.” If that cry were to become true for you, what would you want to see? Father William Bausch in a beautiful essay on the Bartimaeus story suggests that there are three things we would want to see differently: (1) relationships, (2) the overlooked and (3) the hints of God’s grace in our lives.
The first thing Fr. Bausch says we would want to see differently is what our heart has always told us is true: that relationships are the most important part of life. This would lead us to ask ourselves why we allowed the madness of individualism and consumerism to get ahead of our relationships? Why did we allow our careers and our schedules, our entertainment and our desire to accumulate things push the people in our lives to the side? When we look at our lives, all to often our most important relationships—the relationships between husband and wife, children and parents, and friends—are not as treasured as we know they should be. We don’t eat together, we don’t take time for the people we love. Yet, in our most sober moment we know that nothing is more important than our relationships. Then why don we see it?
Msgr. Joseph Pellegrino
Formerly Blind, Now Following the Lord
2024 EXCERPT: I can’t understand this. I knew so much when I was in my 20’s & 30’s. I knew everything about everything. But the older I get the more I realize how little I know. Where did all that knowledge go? When I was a young priest, people would come to me with their problems and I would have an instant solution. Now, I am not sure I can comprehend their difficulties, let alone offer solutions. Perhaps, the wisdom of age is realizing how little we know, and how much we are dependent on God to step into His view of the world. Part of this wisdom is realizing that we need God to guide us from
our blindness into His Light. Bartimaeus, the blind man of today’s Gospel, was dependent on others for sight. But he could hear well. He heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, so he called out to him. He was healed. And then, Bartimaeus did something a blind person cannot do. He followed Jesus, not just figuratively, but literally. Bartimaeus walked behind Jesus along with the other disciples of the Lord.
Msgr. Charles Pope
A Man Who Saw by Hearing
2021 EXCERPT: In today’s gospel there is a very familiar story of the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus. As with any familiar story, the danger is that we, upon hearing its opening lines say, “Oh that story,” and we just sort of tune out. But there are many things in the details of the story that we can easily miss. Ultimately the story of Bartimaeus is also our story, for we too must let the Lord heal our blindness and give us sight. One paradox of this gospel that we shall note, is that the man receives his sight as the result of hearing.
Let’s look at this gospel in 6 stages.
I. Perception of the Problem
II. Proclamation that is Prescribed
III. Perseverance that Produces
IV. Priority that is Presented
V. Permission that is Procured
VI. Path that is Pursued
Bishop John Louis
2021 EXCERPT: Today’s gospel narrates the story of the healing of the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, by Jesus Christ. The name “Bar-Timaeus” (son of Timaeus) could have several meanings: “son of honour”, “son of integrity” or “son of unclean”.
Though Bartimaeus was supposed to be the son of honour and of integrity, he was seen by many as the “son of unclean”, due to his blindness, poverty and his untidy appearance. This initial circumstance of Bartimaeus might have been depressing for him. Fortunately, our Lord Jesus would restore unto Bartimaeus honour and integrity of the higher order. That is, the story of the initially insignificant man became so significant that it has been recorded in the Bible to edify thousands of generations after him.
Fr. Michael Chua
2018 EXCERPT: Today, the gospel presents us with the familiar story of the healing of the blind man, Bartimaeus. It is an important story because it is the last healing miracle to be recorded by St Mark in his gospel and it comes after Jesus’ triple prediction of His passion, death and resurrection, and at the end of the lessons given by our Lord to his disciples on the theme of discipleship. Thus, the story of Bartimaeus serves as a conclusion to our Lord’s catechesis on both His mission and that of His disciples. The clue to understanding this story is found at the end, where our Lord names faith as what impels Bartimaeus. The rest of the story shows us what that faith is.
We’ve been taught since young, that shouting and yelling are rude and offensive. So, we’ve learnt measured speech, how to tone down and moderate the volume of our voice, speak in a hushed and muffled tone in public places, out of respect for others. We have been so good at this that we have forgotten that the essence of evangelisation, of proclaiming the Good News calls for the reverse. In the first reading, the Prophet Jeremiah tells the people to proclaim the good news of how God will rescue them in three imperative commands: “Proclaim! Praise! Shout!” Can you imagine if he told the people to do this: “Be quiet! Lower your volume! Whisper if you really have to say anything!” Thank God he didn’t. We wouldn’t be here today if Christians in past centuries had chosen to remain quiet.
Fr. Vincent Hawkswell
2024 EXCERPT: “Every high priest chosen from among men is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf…. And one does not presume to take this honour, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was.”
This passage aptly describes the office of Pope for, in personally choosing the first incumbent of that office, Peter, Jesus said, “I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Moreover, Jesus said, “the jaws of death” would not prevail against his Church, meaning that Peter’s office would survive Peter.
Fr. Denis J. Hanly
Fr. Tommy Lane
Why pray when God knows what we want?
EXCERPT: “Why should we pray when God already knows what we want?” is a question I am asked. It is true that God already knows what we need but why then did Bartimaeus have to ask Jesus for help in today’s Gospel? (Mark 10:46-52) Anyone watching would, no doubt, have thought that it must be obvious that the man wants Jesus to restore his sight but yet Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you.” (Mark 10:51) And when he said, “Master, let me see again,” Jesus cured him. Jesus knew everything about people: he knew Judas was going to betray him, he knew about Nathanael under the fig tree (John 1:48), he knew the woman in Samaria had five husbands before her present partner (John 4:18). Jesus knew about this blind man, he didn’t need to be told he needed his sight restored, but yet he asked him what he wanted. Bartimaeus did not need to tell Jesus, but telling Jesus was preparing Bartimaeus’ heart for the gift of having his sight restored. Once again, the question I am asked is, “Why should we pray when God already knows what we want?” My response is that prayer is not about informing God what our needs are. God already knows our needs and does not need our prayer to keep him up to date on what is happening in our lives. Instead, prayer is for our benefit, not God’s benefit. Prayer is to prepare our heart for what God wishes to give us.
Fr. John Kavanaugh, S.J.
The Terror of Love
EXCERPT: Bartimaeus summoned a courage that many of us lack. To make matters worse, the people around him scolded him. They tried to shut him up. But he yelled out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!”
This persistent, bold trust must have stopped Jesus, who ordered his people to call the blind man over. Then the crowd changed its tone: “You have nothing whatever to fear from him. Get up. He is calling you.”
The best instincts of history’s Christian crowd echo the refrain. There is nothing to fear from him. And yet we halt. We had better wait. What will he ask of us? How might we be properly prepared to enter his presence? How can we be worthy to approach him?
Bishop Frank Schuster
What Bartimaeus Was Willing to Do
2021 EXCERPT: What is Bartimaeus willing to do to encounter Jesus? The blind beggar Bartimaeus discovers that the miracle worker Jesus of Nazareth is walking by him. He cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.” What happens next? The people around him start rebuking him, telling him to be quiet. How typical. But what is Bartimaeus willing to do to encounter Jesus?
You can imagine the scene. The crowd was honored that Jesus was visiting their town of Jericho. They didn’t want the cries of a poor blind beggar to spoil Jesus’ impression of them. When Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus, the crowd tells him to be quiet. We don’t want you to embarrass us. Bartimaeus isn’t discouraged. Despite the resistance, he cries out all the louder, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” Jesus hears Bartimaeus’ cries. Jesus says, “Call him.” And it is somewhat humorous to see how quickly the crowd changes their tune. Instead of telling Bartimaeus to be quiet, they quickly change their message, “Take courage, get up, Jesus is calling you.” The irony here is, Bartimaeus had already proven himself to be the most courageous person there.
Who is Truly Blind?
2021 EXCERPT: Who was truly blind? The beggar or the followers of Jesus? Blindness is difficult to cure, but it is also difficult to diagnose. One man brushes his young daughter away when she wants to show him her school work, “Can’t you see I am trying to watch the game? Go bother your mother.” Another father is so overwhelmed by his love for his daughter that he writes a song in her honor. It is called, “Isn’t she lovely.” He writes she is truly the angels best, we have been heaven blessed. I can’t believe what God has done, isn’t she lovely? His name is Stevie Wonder, the blind singer. Which man truly sees his daughter? Which man is blind?
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