YEAR B: HOMILY FOR THE 30TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (13)

YEAR B: HOMILY FOR THE 30TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY THEME: TURN TO THE LORD TO HEAL YOUR BLINDNESS

BY: Fr Henry Nnadozie

 

HOMILY:

Blindness, the most severe form of visual impairment, can reduce people’s ability to perform daily tasks, and move about.

Today a blind person has the hope of living a useful life with modern tools for training. It was not so in first century Palestine up to Jesus, time. It is a deplorable human condition that reduces one to abject poverty. A blind person has no right and so the only fate left for him is to beg for alms by the street or road. He has no say in the society. He must resign to the fate which his condition has placed him. Batimeus in our Gospel today refuse to resign to the fate this deplorable condition has kept him. He had that Jesus was passing and began to cause civil unrest with his supplication “Jesus Son of David, Have pity on me. At this point some questions come to my mind. First how did he knew of Jesus whom he had no seen. Secondly, how come he refused to beg for money(alms) this time around. To the first question we may answer that though Batimeus was physically blind but see spiritually. He must have been hearing of Jesus, his preachings and miracles. Perhaps he had he was passing this day and began to draw his attention by shouting loud. Here we must ask ourselves do what we hear about Christ lead us to know Him even without seeing Him (Jn 20:29). Faith according to Paul comes by hearing cf Roman’s 10:17. This physically blind man came to know Jesus as Messiah (Son of David) and God (someone whom it belongs to show mercy). This brings us to the answer to the second question. Knowing whom Jesus really is, he begged not for material alms but for spiritual things-for mercy/salvation, restoration and reintegration into the human society. This is in contrast to James and John, last Sunday who were asked the same thing “what do you want” and in their spiritual myopia, asked for juicy positions in the “kingdom to be established by Jesus”. Like Batimeus we must know what we ask for in prayer. Batimaeus knew his deplorable blind condition, asked for mercy and healing.

Jesus in his mercy, healed Batimeus. Today, we too must realize how blind we are and how we wallow in darkness due to our spiritual /moral blindness both as individuals, family, society and church. Isaiah captured it aptly in 59v10 “we grope like blind along a wall groping like those who have no eye, we stumble at noon as in twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead”. Leaders of this human society on earth groping through the streets like those who are blind. The list of concrete instances of blindness abounds (a family man who takes care of another woman while his family starves, political leaders who can’t execute meaningful project but squander money, a student who will not study for his exam, youths who risk their life through antisocial crimes knowing it will only result to death, lawmakers who enact useless laws, especially those that threaten human life, a selfish neighbor, brother, friend is blind etc etc).

We must realize our blindness and ask for mercy. We must not be comfortable with our blind condition. We must rebel against it like Batimeus who would refuse to be silenced by the crowd. He wants to see. We too must struggle with our blindness. When Jesus heals us by showing us the light, we must also keep behind every trace our of blindness just as Batimeus left his cloak behind. The cloak is d part of him that reminds him of his former condition. In this cloak are perhaps, the alms he got while being blind. He left it so as not to be reminded of his blindness. We too must leave every vestige of our blindness -our former way of life that depicts blindness. We must follow Jesus for it is in following him that we see properly for Jesus tells us “those who follow me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).

May the Lord heal us of our blindness. Amen. Happy Sunday.

Fr Henry Nnadozie prays for u.

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