Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Remembrance of the historic Meeting in Assisi (1986), when John Paul II invited representatives of all Christian confessions and the great world religions to pray for peace. Memorial of Dominique Green, a young African American man executed in 2004. Prayer for those who are condemned to death and the abolition of capital punishment.
Read more
Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Remembrance of the historic Meeting in Assisi (1986), when John Paul II invited representatives of all Christian confessions and the great world religions to pray for peace. Memorial of Dominique Green, a young African American man executed in 2004. Prayer for those who are condemned to death and the abolition of capital punishment.
First Reading
Jeremiah 31,7-9
For Yahweh says this: Shout with joy for Jacob! Hail the chief of nations! Proclaim! Praise! Shout, 'Yahweh has saved his people, the remnant of Israel!' Watch, I shall bring them back from the land of the north and gather them in from the far ends of the earth. With them, the blind and the lame, women with child, women in labour, all together: a mighty throng will return here! In tears they will return, in prayer I shall lead them. I shall guide them to streams of water, by a smooth path where they will not stumble. For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born son.
Psalmody
Psalm 126
Antiphon
Let us walk Lord to your house.
If the Lord does not build the house,
in vain do its builders labour;
if the Lord does not watch over the city,
in vain does the watchman keep vigil.
In vain is your earlier rising,
your going later to rest,
you who toil for the bread you eat :
when you pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber.
Truly sons are a gift from the Lord,
a blessing, the fruit of the womb.
Indeed the sons of youth
are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.
O the happiness of the man
who has filled his quiver with these arrows!
He will have no cause for shame
when he disputes with his foes in the gateways.
Second Reading
Hebrews 5,1-6
Every high priest is taken from among human beings and is appointed to act on their behalf in relationships with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; he can sympathise with those who are ignorant or who have gone astray, because he too is subject to the limitations of weakness. That is why he has to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. No one takes this honour on himself; it needs a call from God, as in Aaron's case. And so it was not Christ who gave himself the glory of becoming high priest, but the one who said to him: You are my Son, today I have fathered you, and in another text: You are a priest for ever, of the order of Melchizedek.
Reading of the Gospel
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 10,46-52
They reached Jericho; and as he left Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus -- that is, the son of Timaeus -- a blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and cry out, 'Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.' And many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he only shouted all the louder, 'Son of David, have pity on me.' Jesus stopped and said, 'Call him here.' So they called the blind man over. 'Courage,' they said, 'get up; he is calling you.' So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus. Then Jesus spoke, 'What do you want me to do for you?' The blind man said to him, 'Rabbuni, let me see again.' Jesus said to him, 'Go; your faith has saved you.' And at once his sight returned and he followed him along the road.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Homily
A prayer made with faith always opens the heart to a different way of living. Bartimaeus, who begged at the gate of Jericho, had understood this. Just like all the other blind people, he too is dressed in weakness. In the Gospels, the blind are the image of poverty and total dependence on others. Bartimaeus, like Lazarus and many other poor people both near and far from us, are lying at the gates of life waiting for some kind of comfort. And yet, this blind man becomes an example for each one of us, an example of a believer who asks and who prays. All around him there is darkness; he does not see any of the people who pass by him; he does not recognize anyone who stands near him, nor does he recognize the faces and gestures of people. But that day something different happens. He hears the sound of the crowd drawing nearer to him. And in the darkness of his life and of his vision, he senses a presence: he had "heard that it was Jesus..." the evangelist notes. Hearing that Jesus is passing by he begins to cry out: "Son of David, have mercy on me!" It is the prayer of the poor that we all need to learn to make our own. His cry is his only way to overcome the darkness and distance that he is not able to measure. As in the ancient Israel, the cry of the people in prayer makes the walls of the city of Jericho fall (see Jos 6:16-27). So Bartimaeus overcomes the indifference of the city. His cry, however, did not please the crowd, so much so that all tried to silence him. His cry was inconvenient; he risked disturbing even the happy encounter between Jesus and the crowd of the city. The crowd's attitude, though apparently reasonable, was entirely pitiless.
Jesus' presence, however, makes him overcome every fear. Bartimaeus feels that his life could change completely in this one encounter. And with a voice even stronger than before, he cries out: "Son of David, have mercy on me!" It is the prayer of the little ones, of the poor who, day and night, without stop because their needs remain unmet, turn to the Lord. As soon as he hears that Jesus wants to see him, Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and runs toward him. Listening to the Word of God does not lead us toward emptiness or a psychological shelter aimed to make us tranquil more than to change; listening leads us to a personal encounter with the Lord and to the change of life coming from it. It is Jesus who speaks first. Jesus shows his interest in him and in his condition and then asks him: "What do you want me to do for you?" Just as he had prayed before with simplicity, Bartimaeus says to Jesus: "My teacher, let me see again!" Bartimaeus recognized the light without seeing it. For this reason, he regained his sight immediately. "Go; your faith has made you well," Jesus says to him.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
