I believe in miracles. There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus restored the physical sight of blind Bartimeus in today’s gospel.
Miracles are part of the reason people knew that Jesus was the Messiah.
In Ignatian spirituality we are invited to put ourselves into a gospel story to become one of the characters.
That might be a bit of a challenge for many of us, if we try to become Bartimeus. It might be hard for us to imagine what being blind would be like.
But there may be a way to connect with Bartimeus. There may be something in this gospel for those of us who are not physically blind.
We may not be physically blind, but all of us have some spiritual blindness.
And all of us have a choice whether to remain by the roadside crippled by that blindness or whether to cry out to God that we want to see more clearly.
What I’ve learned is that this life journey we are on is way more interesting if we ask to see!
Another thing I’ve learned is that sometimes when God helps us to see something we couldn’t see before, the healing is gradual, sort of like peeling layers of an onion.
Sometimes God takes us back to the same issue over and over again, peeling the onion a layer at a time.
And each time God has us revisit an issue in our lives, we go deeper and deeper into that issue and begin to see more and more clearly.
So if we want to understand where God is trying to heal our spiritual blindness, we need to look for the same issue coming up repeatedly in our lives.
God reveals what God wants to heal.
Look for the same old thing coming up again and again. Don’t resist it.
Here’s an example from my own life. Coincidentally it has to do with beggars.
I had a rather jaded view of beggars. My thought was “Don’t give them money, they might buy drugs or alcohol with it.” So I didn’t help beggars.
The first layer of the onion began to be peeled off when God began to soften my heart. Maybe it wasn’t up to me to judge. Had I checked in with God to see if I was supposed to help this person?
Maybe my job was just to love, not judge and seek God’s guidance. So occasionally, when I began to get what I call holy nudges from God, I would give beggars a bit of my change.
The second layer was peeled away when children became a part of the picture.
One day a woman came up to me outside TJ Maxx. She was almost in tears. She needed school clothes for her kids. Nudged again, I gave her folding money.
Several weeks after, in the parking lot at Trader Joe’s, a man, his wife and two kids were begging, really begging for help. Following God’s nudge, I gave them money.
The third layer of the onion came off one day when I was seated in a booth next to the window eating a meal at a local Italian restaurant.
I became aware of a homeless man standing outside the window staring at my meal. I instantly knew he was hungry.
I grabbed a $20 bill and ran outside to give it to him.
Afterwards I got in my car and the thought came to me “You didn’t even ask his name.”
Next time I will, I vowed – the third layer.
Some days later while packing for a week long trip, I looked at all my clothes. And I thought of all the people around us who shop at Goodwill and can’t afford TJ Maxx. I vowed to think of their needs before I bought anything else.
And I spent another week of my vacation hauling bags and bags of stuff I wasn’t using to the Goodwill so that someone else could have the joy of owning it.
Layer #4
And then one Sunday after a group of us had gathered at Pollo Loco for lunch, I bumped into a lady in the parking lot, empty coffee cup extended begging for money.
Again, getting a holy nudge, I asked her her name and if she was hungry. “C’mon let’s get you something to eat,” I said. I invited her to choose her meal and a beverage, and I paid. I gave her the buzzer that would let her know her meal was ready, gave her a hug and left.
After I was in the car and down the street the thought came to me “Why didn’t you stay and keep her company while she ate?”
Layer #5
And then God took me to the core of it all.
All of a sudden “I saw.” I saw what God was leading me to see, what all the layers were about.
And here is what I “saw.” The more you befriend the person on the roadside, the beggar, the more you will learn to befriend the unlovely parts of yourself.
The more you stop resisting the lives of the beggars in your world, the more you will come to peace with the parts of you that live on the roadside begging.
Ah! Now I saw what all these encounters with the homeless were about.
I saw the issue with a spiritual depth I hadn’t seen before.
I thought it was about helping the poor and the marginalized.
I thought it was about giving them dignity by knowing their name.
I thought it was about giving the gift of a meal and my company.
I thought it was all about being willing to be a companion to the poor.
And it was all those things! But it was also about more.
It was about acknowledging the unlovely parts of us.
About not only being aware of that part of ourselves, but extending care to ourselves.
By knowing ourselves (our name) by knowing everything about ourselves.
It’s about spending time with the unlovely parts of ourselves, making friends with that part.
It’s about being able to say, “Yes, this shadow is a part of me.”
I am both shadow and light – accepting rather than resisting that.
The Good News is that by befriending, eating with, giving honor to all of who we are, that part of us will be gradually healed by God.
Just the way Jesus healed the blind beggar.
And so the gospel invites us to take the part of the beggar:
· To long for something more
· To beg Jesus to see more
That’s how the onion gets peeled.
And the gospel also invites us to take the part of Jesus:
· To accept the beggar in ourselves and in the world
· To never resist the beggar
· To get to know the beggar
And then we, like the blind beggar, will be healed.