Monday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 14, 2022

Luke 18, 35-43

As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.

“As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening.”  The road to a city the size of Jericho would have been lined with beggars of all kinds, a pathetic lineup of human suffering and neglect.  In the cities of Mexico the innumerable beggars, mostly people from the countryside, each keep up a chant of “Peso, peso, peso . . .”  This goes on all day.  It is very mechanical.  Their eyes, wide and empty from lack of sleep and hunger, look out on the world without noticing it at all.  Perhaps this was the case of most of the beggars on the road that day.  The blind, the lame, the deformed, the widows, simply begged, and could not see beyond them.  This is us, too, for we do not look up beyond our schedules, our struggles.  We go from day to day and do not pay attention to anything beyond our immediate vicinity of self-interest.  We beg too, perhaps without realizing it.  We beg for attention, for assistance, for patience.  Few of us today pray and ask the only One who can give us what we need for help.  

This is what the blind man on the road did.  He stops his begging to ask a question.  He wants to know what the commotion is about. He is told, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”  We might ask what is different about this beggar so that, of all of them, he asks this question.  He has not given up hope that something will happen so that he will be able to see again.  Hope makes us aware of our surroundings and allows us to look for the help we can receive only from another.  He did not allow years — perhaps a lifetime — of blindness to make him blind to the goodness of God.  

“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”  He knows who he is.  He has listened to people talking about him.  Perhaps he expected, all along to meet up with Jesus when he finally came that way.  He stayed awake and alert, hoping that he would come.  Any time a commotion erupted on the road, he asked what the cause was, and time after time it was not the arrival of Jesus.  But here he was, passing by.  And here was his chance to be saved.  He had waited long outdoors in all weather, and this chance might never recur.  Some in the crowd told him to be quiet.  The triumphant Messiah could have nothing to do with him.  These acted as demons, impeding the conversion of a soul they considered theirs.  But the man cried out the more, and louder with each cry, his hope giving him strength.

“Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him.”  The Lord involves others in this man’s saving.  We can understand these assistants as the angels, or the prayers of the saints.  The Lord, in his Providence, has assigned several people and also an Angel and the saints in heaven to assist each of us and to bring us to the Lord.  “What do you want me to do for you?”  This phrase is echoed in the ritual for baptism, when the priest asks the parents what they seek for their child from God’s Church.  They answer, “Baptism”, or, “Faith”.  Formerly, the priest would ask this question of the child, no matter how tiny, and the godparents would speak for him.  The Lord asks this question here so that the crowd can know what is happening.  Not all can see because of the crowd.  But the Lord is also giving the man a choice.  He could ask for whatever he wanted.  But he stays true to his greatest need: “Lord, please, let me see.”  This also echoes the answer of the parents at the time of baptism: they want their child to see the Lord.

“Have sight; your faith has saved you.”  He believed that the Lord could do this for him.  He believed, even before the coming of Jesus that God could heal him, and he never let this go.  His belief in God led to his unyielding hope and his faith in Jesus of Nazareth.  “He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.”  Let us pray for the virtue of hope so that we may traverse this fallen world in the certainty that at the end of our earthly world we will come to the New Jerusalem.  And let us not let Jesus pass us by but to cling to him with all our might.