Prison Awareness Sunday

First reading: Jer. 31:7–9

Thus says the LORD: Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: The LORD has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them back from the land of the north; I will gather them from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, the mothers and those with child; they shall return as an immense throng. They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble. For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.

Second reading: Heb. 5:1–6

Brothers and sisters: Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
In the same way, it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest, but rather the one who said to him: You are my son: this day I have begotten you; just as he says in another place: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Gospel: Mk. 10:46–52

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” 

So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

In other words

by Fr. Atilano Corcuera, SVD (Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay City)

To understand why Bartimaeus was in a panic mood when he cried out, “Jesus, have pity on me!” I got an idea. I closed my eyes and walked inside and outside my room blind, for five minutes. After this short period of blindness, I sat down and wrote some realizations:

For more than seventy years of my life I really never appreciated the gift of my eyesight. It is true what an optical ad declared: “80% of our activities depend on our eyes.”

It was evening when I walked around with my eyes closed. It dawned on me that eyesight needed light to be of use at all. Eyesight plus light equals vision.
Moreover, seeing does not mean that I see everything. I need to focus and record what I see in my brain. One test that is given to aspiring police detectives is about seeing. They are asked to look at a picture of a crime scene for one minute; after which they are asked to write down everything that they have seen in the picture. Many fail the test!

The Gospel prompted me to profusely thank God for my eyes and asked forgiveness for taking them for granted. Now I can better understand why, despite the crowd rebuking Bartimaeus to keep silent, he shouted the more. A naughty thought was playing in my mind: Bartimeaus’s voice must have been heard up to Jerusalem!

Rather than take our eyesight for granted, may our prayer be, “Lord, I want to see more, so that I can love more.”