Redemptorist News
Dear Sinead and Mark – ‘Soul Food for Young Adults’, November 18, 2012
THIRTY THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR B: November 18th, 2012.
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Did you watch any of the London Olympics, this year? Did you by any chance watch any of the opening ceremony, and the spectacle that it was, the story it told. Did you see the Queen with James Bond? Hilarious and a great surprise to all. (Find it on Youtube).
Weeks later, I stumbled one night on the final
Stephen Hawking at Opening Ceremony of Paralympic Games
hour of the opening ceremony for the Paralympic Games,- with Stephen Hawking and a wonderful celebration of the human mind, of human capacities to overcome all sorts of obstacles in life, of the openness to discovery and wonder, led by the gentle figure of Miranda. It was awe-inspiring and uplifting for the human spirit, to see men and women with so many physical challenges rising to great achievements.
What’s that got to do with the sayings of Jesus that are put before us in this Sunday’s readings (Mark 13:24-32)? The setting is the Tuesday of the last week of his life, just before he begins his Passion. He takes leave of Jerusalem, goes across the valley, and sits there with Peter, James, John and Andrew, looking across at the beauty of the city of Jerusalem. In his farewell words, he warns the disciples of very tough times ahead for them. And Mark wrote all this down about 30 years later, when in fact the disciples were being hunted down, brought to trial, and executed for their faith. Like today, in different places and ways.
Then Jesus tells them that in a future time, unknown to everyone, he himself will be revealed as who he truly is,- the Son of Man, the Son of God among us in all his humanity and ours. It will be pretty awesome when he is revealed in his glory.
And that happens on a personal level as well. People meet Jesus in many ways. In the Gospel, the shepherds met him in a tiny manger: the blind man (Bartimaeus, whom we met a couple of weeks ago) met him when he cried out ‘Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!’: Peter, James and John met him up on the mountain when Jesus was ‘transfigured’ and his clothes were whiter than white, and the dark cloud was over their heads, and they heard ‘This is my beloved Son, listen to him’. Thomas, the one we call 
Doubting Thomas, met him when Jesus asked him to put his finger into his wounds, and his hand into his side, and feel the wounds of the Passion,- and Thomas burst out ‘My Lord and my God!’. Saul, who hated every disciple with a passion, met Jesus on the road to Damascus, when he was blinded by a vision of Jesus. Two disciples met Jesus after a long walk with him on Easter Sunday afternoon,
Emmaus Table
when they sat across the table at Emmaus and Jesus broke bread for them. So you see, sometimes it’s an awesome moment, and sometimes it’s very simple and quiet, but profound all the same.
A friend of mine, a few years ago, was on retreat for a weekend with about 60 others, and it was profound for many of us. When she arrived home on Sunday evening, she was radiant with joy. Her nine-year old son looked at her, and said to her ‘Mommy, I know what happened to you. You met Jesus!’ And it was true.
Meeting Jesus, coming face to face with him, is awesome, whether it be on my bike, in my room, in the bus or car, whether my eyes are opened at the manger, or on the road, at the cross, or in the Eucharist. Meeting him is earth-shaking.
When Jesus is revealed in his humanity and glory, to the world or to any one person, nothing is the same afterwards. He’ll be someone to die for!
Have a great week, Mark, Sinead.
Thanks!
Fr. Seamus.
You can contact me at seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com
Soul Food for Young Adults: Letter to Sinead and Mark. Nov. 11, 2012.
LETTER TO SINEAD AND MARK; Nov. 11th, 2012. 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
(Sinead and Mark are two young adults.)
DEAR SINEAD AND MARK,
It’s a cold and November kind of day, these days. We’re getting nearer to the turn of the days, when the light increases, and the days begin to get longer. It’s only 40 days until the 21st of December, the winter solstice, and a few days later we will be celebrating the coming of The Light into the world, Jesus himself who said of himself ‘I am the light of the world!’. In dark times, we hang on to hope of brighter days and a brighter life.
A Question: is your Tommy Hilfiger
outfit genuine? Are your Adidas shoes the real thing? Is your O’Neill
outfit all that it appears? I hope so, to all of the above. But, how do you know what’s genuine, and what’s fake? There’s a lot of counterfeit making the rounds, and it’s important to closely examine whatever is offered to us,- and not only clothes, shoes, gear, etc. but people too, and especially the ones who seem to be on a pedestal, whether in the church or in society.
Well, that’s partly what this weekend is about, on this weekend of Nov. 11th, the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. We are invited to reflect on a story in St. Mark’s Gospel, ,- Mark Chapter 12, verses 38-44. Jesus is visiting the Temple in Jerusalem for the very last time, -on the Tuesday before his Passion began. He won’t be back again. So, he sits and watches the goings and the comings of people. Then, in the tiny story we hear today, we meet some people who are all show, all bluff, hollow inside, full of pretence, with their hearts far from God. And then we meet one little woman who was genuine, who had very little of this world’s goods, who was a widow woman,- and whose heart was made of gold,- for she gave her last cent (we call it ‘the widow’s mite‘) as an offering to God in the Temple, -she gave away her lunch money for that day, all that she had left, to the God she loved. She gave, and she trusted. (And note that this story is placed right before Jesus begins the days of his Passion, when he would do just the same,- give everything, on the Cross. The widow woman is an example placed before us, today’s disciples of Jesus.)
Do you meet people like those in your lives? People, even religious ones sometime, who are not genuine, who are all show and bluster, but hollow inside. Well, maybe it’s not fair to judge them completely, because we ourselves, every one of us, are at times not really genuine, not the real thing. We talk the talk, but don’t always walk the walk.
And do you meet others in your life who, you feel, 
are the real thing, are genuine,- their words and actions match. They might not be well off, but they give so much, of their time, interest, energy, care, thoughtfulness, and love. They are involved with people, with their neighbours, with those around them, with companions at school or at work,- they treat people properly and well. Their prayers are matched by their living. There are lots and lots of such people around us, every day. Maybe your own parents or relations fit this picture! Thank God for them.
So, is it Sham or is it Real? Or maybe we should ask ourselves, am I sometimes Sham, and sometimes Real? I think we can all answer Yes to that one. And so, when I point the finger at someone else, I will stop and notice the other three fingers pointing back at myself! Just try pointing your finger now, and see what it looks like. It might hurt, but it’s also good to do it.
Have a wonderfull and ‘real’ week! And be gentle with yourself , – and with others too. None of us is perfect. So, be kind and forgiving,- even of the other (sometimes) hypocrites like ourselves.
Thank God for wonderful people! We’re all of us unfinished masterpieces! God is hard at work in the hearts of all of us. Make room.
Fr. Seamus
Your response, comments, questions or suggestions would be most welcome.
email: seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com
Soul Food for the Hungry Adult. 32nd Sunday: Nov.11th, 2012
Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: November 11th, 2012.
Gospel: Mark 12:38-44. The two tiny coins of the widow-woman.
Jesus is paying his very last visit to the Temple, on the Tuesday before his suffering began. And as soon as this incident was over, he leaves the Temple, to get ready for what was about to happen. He was going to give his everything, his all, his whole self, over to his heavenly Father.
Jesus was watching the comings and goings in the Temple. The Religious Leaders (the Scribes and Pharisees) were going around parading themselves, and pretending to be devout and good and ‘holy’. But the reality was that lots of them often ‘devoured the property of widows’, even as they showed off how ‘good’ they were, with all their long prayers, and getting first place at meetings, and having everyone bowing and scraping to them. A load of cods-wallop is how Jesus described them.
And then along comes one of these widows, and what does she
A Lepton,-a tiny Jewish coin, worth about 1/100th of a day's wages.
do but put in her very last cent-(we call it ‘the widow’s mite’ or tiny coin). She gave her everything as an offering. And who else was about to do the very same, a few days later? Jesus himself. He would put in everything he had, his whole self. That woman was a model for any who would follow Jesus as disciple,- hers was an attitude of total surrender and trust in God. Give God what you have, totally, in trust that are cared for. Jesus himself would say ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit’,- his last breath.
Do you see any people today, who are full of themselves, showing off their fine robes and clothes, and trampling on other people, treating them as dirt? -and sometimes even doing it, they claim, in the name of God!
And have an eye out all around you for people who give their everything, to their family, or community, or nation. There are plenty of them too, unselfish, who put their hearts entirely into what they do and how they serve others.
Which would be the way of a disciple of Jesus, today, in Ireland or in the wider world?
Link to http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/20_45-21_4.htm for a reflection on this story, as it was told by Luke in Chapter 20.
For disciples reading this Gospel today, note how it 
is deliberately placed almost shoulder to shoulder with Jesus’ passion and death. Those who give their everything will never lose out. They will find life to the full.
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
email seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com
Soul Food for Young Adults, ‘Dear Sinead and Mark’, November 4, 2012
Reflection for Sunday November 4th, 2012. 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time.
See ‘Mass Readings’ for this Sunday, on Home Page.
Dear Sinead and Mark,
“Spot on! Bingo! You got it in one! You got straight to the heart of things, there!”
Isn’t it nice when someone says that to you? Well, meet someone who got that very response from the Master when he gave his answer to Jesus. The Scribe or learned man (in today’s Gospel from Mark 12) was told that he wasn’t far from the kingdom of God,- that he was indeed Spot On in his understandings.
‘To love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength’ –that is indeed the first and greatest commandment to live by. And ‘to love your neighbour as your self’ goes with it. Both contain the whole of the Law, -the whole understanding of the first things in life.
But where does this come from? It’s because we are called to RETURN LOVE FOR LOVE! It’s not we who loved God first, but it is God, our Creator, who loved us first, and loves us to the end of infinity!! ‘God is love!’ cries St. John in his First Letter.
Have you met somebody yet who loves you to bits, and is ‘crazy’ about you? I hope you have. Someone who runs wildly towards you with open arms, and you run even faster towards him or her!
If we do not experience being loved, we shrivel up completely. We need to know that we matter deeply to Someone! And with our Creator, we matter infinitely,- with a love that is so high, so wide, so deep, so long that we will never fully know or understand it! Isn’t it fantastic to know that we have such a Creator! 
To live in love is to be like a fish swimming in the sea- it’s the sea that holds it and enables it to be alive from fin to gills!
And humans live with oxygen: without it we die. It’s all around us and within us. We live in it.
And we live our lives loved to the gills! Because, Who loves us? Our Maker/Creator/ Higher Power/’God’/ Heavenly Father,- whatever name you have for this great mystery and Person. ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I am constant in my affection for you! (Jeremiah 31:3 ). Why? Because ‘God is love‘ (1 John 4:8) Each of us is loved since before any Big Bang! ‘Your heavenly Father knows the number of hairs on your head!’ (Matthew Chapter 10)
If you gave me just one verse of Scripture to take to a desert island, 
I would choose verse nine from the 15th chapter of St. John’s Gospel: ‘The way my Father loves me, that is how much I love you! Live in my love!’, said Jesus.Think how wide, high, deep, and long the Father’s love is for Jesus. As wide and deep and high and long as God! And that’s how we are loved too, -up to our neck in it, over our heads in it, too wide for us ever to cross it!
We are simply called to Return Love for Love! Hear a voice inside you saying: ‘Be loved, Beloved!’
Thanks be to God, who is crazy about us with a most excessive love! St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists and one of the greatest writers of the 18th Century, often spoke of God in Italian as ‘Pazzo per amore eccessivo’- ‘crazy with excessive love! So ‘excessive’ that he sent us his only Son. And at the very heart of a lifetime of writing was this phrase,- ‘Return love for love!’ That’s living!
Live in it! Breathe it! Swim in it! Enjoy it!
Fr. Seamus.
seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie
(P.S. If you like it, telll your friends. If you don’t, ‘keep your breath to cool your porridge!’ Ta! Fr.S)
Soul Food for the Hungry Adult: 31st. Sunday. November 4, 2012.
31st Sunday, Year B. St. Mark’s Gospel Chapter 12, verses 28-34.
‘The love in your heart was not put there to stay. Love isn’t love until you give it away.’
‘Write them on the doorframes of your houses.’ (Deuteronomy 6:9)
Q. Which of the 613 Laws is the most important? A. Just these two!, said Jesus.
And Jesus told this honest questioner which two they were.
You see, Jesus has now (in Mark 12) arrived in Jerusalem, just before beginning the time of his Passion. Here he meets a Jewish Scribe, a person who had studied all the Laws inside out, and this honest and good Scribe comes to Jesus, with a question from the heart. It’s not like the question that the Rich Young Man put, a couple of weeks back, when he asked Jesus ‘What must I DO to gain eternal life?’ He had wanted to BUY his way into heaven.
This Scribe asks ‘which is the greatest of the commandments’,- of the 613
regulations or laws in the Jewish code. Jesus goes to the heart of it, reminding the man of that text so dear to every good Israelite, a text to be written out and nailed (in a little box called the MEZUZAH) to the doorpost of their homes: It is from Deuteronomy Chapter 6, verses 4-9: Here is the full text: (It’s our First Reading, today):
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.5 Lovez the Lord your God with all your hearta and with all your soul and with all your strength.6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.e 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.’
Jesus did one more thing. He linked that commandment to one other: ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Put the two together, write them in your hearts, make them your daily practice, and you are spot on! ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God!’
To love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength,- that’s what it’s all about. Life is for Loving.
Jesus put it another way, during his final discourse: ‘Love one another as I have loved
you!’ – the way I have loved you, and as much as I have loved you! (John 15) He showed us how by washing our feet, and then dying for us and rising for us.
‘Greater love than this no-one has, that a man would lay down his life for his friends, – and you are my friends!’ (John 15)
‘God so loved the world that he sent his only Son!’(john 3:16)
‘The Word was with God, the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and made his home among us.’ (John 1)
Or here is how St. John put it, near the end of his long life:
God’s Love and Ours: First Letter of John, Chapter 4:
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Or St. Paul, writing to the Roman Christians: Ch 5:5: ‘God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.’
Or St. John, in his Gospel, at the start of his account of the Last Supper: ‘Having loved his own, he loved them to the end.’ (John 13:1)
At the heart of the writings of St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists, was this simple message: ‘Return love for love.’ Or St. Teresa of Avila ‘Love seeks a return of love.’
There’s eating and drinking in this, for a life-time and beyond. Enjoy.
‘The love in your heart was not put there to stay. Love isn’t love until you give it away.’
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie
SOUL FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY ADULT: October 28, 2012.
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. October 28th, 2012.
See HomePage for ‘Mass Readings’ for this Sunday. The Gospel is from MARK 10:46-52.
Three blind mice?… Three blind men- and one who sees!
In just over two chapters, Mark shows us three blind men, and then a blind man who truly SEES. In today’s Gospel, just before Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for his Passion, he meets a blind man who truly SEES Jesus for who he is, and is healed by Jesus.
This healing of Bartimaeus, and the story of Bartimaeus’ faith in Jesus, the Son of David, is told by Mark as a contrast to the blindness of even the closest of the disciples of Jesus. Think back over the past few Sundays, from late Chapter 8 to the end of Chapter 10 of Mark.
- Peter professes faith in Jesus the Christ,- then tries to dissuade Jesus from his Passion, so that Jesus said to him ‘Get behind me, Satan!’. Peter thought he saw, but in reality he couldn’t see Jesus properly.
- After the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John saw Jesus on the mountain, and after Jesus made a second prophecy about his passion, the disciples were arguing about which of them was the Greatest! They just didn’t get what Jesus was about, -they were blind.
- Then, after the third prophecy of his passion, James and John immediately want to claim the thrones on the right and left of Jesus, when he would come into his ‘kingdom’. They still didn’t see what Jesus was about.
Then, we are told about BARTIMAEUS, the SON OF TIMAEUS, a blind begger. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth who was passing by, he cried out on the top of his voice “Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me!’ Twice he called out, even as the whole crowd tried to shut him up. Jesus called him over, asked him what he wanted, and Bartimaeus pointed to his eyes,- he couldn’t see, and he wanted to. ‘Lord, that I may see again!’ And his faith in Jesus made him SEE again.
Peter, James, John were BLIND to who Jesus really was. The blind man could SEE who Jesus was, -the Son of David, the one who was come into the world.
And once he SAW who Jesus was, we are told that ‘he followed him along the way’,- a key word here, because the early disciples were known as ‘the followers of the Way’, meaning Jesus.
And where did the road/ the Way lead Jesus, and possibly Bartimaeus?
The old road from Jericho up to Jerusalem,- 3,300 of a climb, over 37km.
Straight up the hill, for 20 miles, and for over 3,300feet of a climb, from Jericho (850 feet below sea-level), to Jerusalem (2,500 feet above sea-level), to where Jesus immediately began his time of passion which even the closest disciples just could not understand.
Where did Bartimaeus finish up? He became a disciple as soon as his eyes were opened. What roads did his following of Jesus lead him on? Was he himself martyred later, for ‘following the Way’? We don’t know.
But the disciples of Jesus, for whom Mark wrote down this around 67AD, – they too were being invited to ‘follow Jesus along the Way’, or ‘follow Jesus, the Way’,- even as they knew that this Way was leading them very possibly towards having to give their lives, shed their blood, in order to stay faithful to Jesus, the Risen Crucified Lord. Mark wanted their eyes to be opened, their blindness to who Jesus truly was, removed.
‘Change the name, and the story is about you’ and me,- today. (Horace: ‘Quid rides? Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur.’)
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
email: seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie
Footnote:
Jericho (Ariha in Arabic) is the oldest inhabited town in the world, dating back more than 10,000 years. It lies 260 meters (853 feet) below sea level, making it the lowest city on earth.
Jerusalem is approximately 750 metres above sea level, or nearly 2,500 feet.
From Jericho to Jerusalem is uphill for 3,300 feet, or just over 1000 metres. It is located 36 km east of Jerusalem, Known as the “City of Palms”, Jericho contains some of the world’s most important historic sites and is frequently mentioned in the Bible. Go down another 140 metres to reach the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on the surface of the earth.
For miles around, arid hills eroded by wind form a silent moonscape that is at once eerie and beautiful.
Here we find two cities of great contrast. It seems that Bartimaeus took the road from one towards the other, with Jesus.
What happens if you deliberately put two stories back to back? You presume there is a strong connection between them. So, if St. Mark put two stories right beside each other, one following the other, what was his thinking? As well, he put two cities side by side, and why did he do this?
In the Gospel given for our reflection this weekend, we have Jesus entering and leaving the city of Jericho, and meeting blind Bartimaeus whom he heals. This is at the very end of Chapter 10, verses 46 to 52.
Then immediately after this, (in Mark 11, verse 1) Jesus and Bartimaeus and others walk all the way uphill to Jerusalem, where Jesus begins the week of his Passion. Bartimaeus ‘followed him along the road’, or the Way to his Passion.
Jericho is the lowest city on this planet, at 853 feet below sea-level (or 250 metres). It is very close to the Dead Sea which is 400 metres below sea-level,- the lowest place on our planet.
On the other hand, Jerusalem is 2,500 feet, or 750 metres ABOVE sea-level. Jesus and his disciples climbed up over 3300 feet in a stretch of just 20 miles (37 km.) Immediately, we find Jesus on a donkey, about to enter Jerusalem and begin his Passion.
Three blind mice… three blind men!- and one who sees! In just over two chapters, Mark shows us three blind men, and then a blind man who truly SEES. In today’s Gospel, just before Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for his Passion, he meets a blind man who truly SEES Jesus for who he is, and is healed by Jesus.
This healing of Bartimaeus, and the story of Bartimaeus’ faith in Jesus, the Son of David, is told by Mark as a contrast to the blindness of even the closest of the disciples of Jesus. Think back over the past few Sundays, from late Chapter 8 to the end of Chapter 10 of Mark.
- Peter professes faith in Jesus the Christ,- then tries to dissuade Jesus from his Passion, so that Jesus said to him ‘Get behind me, Satan!’. Peter thought he saw, but in reality he couldn’t see Jesus properly.
- After the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John saw Jesus on the mountain, and after Jesus made a second prophecy about his passion, the disciples were arguing about which of them was the Greatest! They just didn’t get what Jesus was about, -they were blind.
- Then, after the third prophecy of his passion, James and John immediately want to claim the thrones on the right and left of Jesus, when he would come into his ‘kingdom’. They still didn’t see what Jesus was about.
Then, we are told about BARTIMAEUS, the SON OF TIMAEUS, a blind begger. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth who was passing by, he cried out on the top of his voice “Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me!’ Twice he called out, even as the whole crowd tried to shut him up. Jesus called him over, asked him what he wanted, and Bartimaeus pointed to his eyes,- he couldn’t see, and he wanted to. And his faith in Jesus made him SEE again.
Peter, James, John were BLIND to who Jesus really was. The blind man could SEE who Jesus was, -the Son of David, the one who was come into the world.
And once he SAW who Jesus was, we are told that ‘he followed him along the way’,- a key word here, because the early disciples were known as ‘the followers of the Way’, meaning Jesus.
And where did the road/ the Way lead him? Straight up the hill, for 20 miles, and for over 3,300feet of a climb, from Jericho (850 feet below sea-level, to 2,500 feet above sea-level), to where Jesus began his time of passion which the disciples just could not understand.
Where did Bartimaeus finish up? He became a disciple as soon as his eyes were opened. What roads did his following of Jesus lead him on? Was he himself martyred later, for ‘following the Way’? We don’t know.
Change the name, and the story is about you and me. (Horace: ‘Quid rides? Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur.’)
Jericho (Ariha in Arabic) is the oldest inhabited town in the world, dating back more than 10,000 years. It lies 260 meters (853 feet) below sea level, making it the lowest city on earth.
Jerusalem is approximately 750 metres above sea level, or nearly 2,500 feet.
From Jericho to Jerusalem is uphill for 3,300 feet, or just over 1000 metres. It is located 36 km east of Jerusalem, Known as the “City of Palms”, Jericho contains some of the world’s most important historic sites and is frequently mentioned in the Bible. Go down another 140 metres to reach the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on the surface of the earth.
For miles around, arid hills eroded by wind form a silent moonscape that is at once eerie and beautiful.
Here we find two cities of great contrast.
Reflection:
‘LETTER TO SINEAD AND MARK’- October 28th , 2012.
LETTER TO SINEAD AND MARK. SOUL FOOD FOR YOUNG ADULTS.
THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: OCTOBER 28, 2012
(See Homepage for Mass Readings for this Sunday)
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Did you ever find yourselves, either of you, ‘at a dead end’,- feeling lost, wondering what direction to go in, feeling worthless and unwanted, feeling that you are missing out on life, that others all around you are having a great time while you are just stuck. You wished you could see more clearly what life is about, or what is right for you, what road to follow? Ever feel like this, at times in your lives?
Well, come and meet someone who must have felt all of the above, and more. He’s a character I love, and his name is Bar-Timaeus, or Son of Timaeus, and he lived way down in the old city of Jericho,- just near the Dead Sea, way below sea-level.
He’s blind. He’s a begger. He’s a reject. And he’s poor. He tries to make ends meet by sitting at the edge of town, hoping for something from the passers by, going into or out of the town.
A crowd is passing. Lots of people. Lots of noise. He overhears someone say that Jesus, the man from Nazareth, was passing by. He had heard of this Jesus. So Bart begins to shout out, from where he is seated on the ground, ‘Son of David! Jesus! Have pity on me!’ The bystanders tried to hush him up, ‘Be quiet!’, but he shouted even louder ‘Son of David, have pity on me!’ (Read the story for yourself in the Gospel today, Mark 10) But the next bit is the bit I love. Jesus hears the shout, over all the din, and stops. ‘Tell him to come to me!’ said the Master,- notice he didn’t go over to Bartimaeus. ‘Tell him to come to me!’
So they went over to Bart and told him that the Master wanted him. What did Bart do next? We are told that he did three things,- he threw off the old cloak that he had around him for years: he jumped up: and he went to Jesus. When he heard the call, he threw off his past, he jumped up with joy, and he went towards the One he had been ‘looking’ for
What does Jesus do? He asks Bart what he wanted him, Jesus, to do for him! As if he couldn’t see clearly that the man was blind. He wanted Bart to tell him what he was looking for. So Bart pointed to his useless eyes, and simply said to Jesus,- ‘Master, that I may see!’ ‘These eyes are not working!,- and I want to see.’ He told Jesus what he wanted from Jesus. Jesus waited for this, and then responded.
‘Your faith has healed you’ said Jesus. And Bart could see, at long last. He looked around, saw faces, saw trees, saw the hills going up to Jerusalem, saw his own hands, saw colour, and then looked and saw Jesus. Saw his eyes and face and love for him, saw his own wonderful reflection in the eyes of the Master. And that’s when his eyes were really opened.
What did he do next? We are told ‘he followed Jesus along the Way’ or along the road (the same word). That, for those early Christians, was code word for following Jesus: they were known early on as The Followers of the Way,- and Jesus had said (in John 14) “I AM THE WAY’.
There’s a short 4-line song from some years ago: ‘Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by: / You will find He’s not too busy to hear your heart’s cry. / He is passing by this moment, your needs to supply. / Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by.’
When you call out to him, you hear him calling out to you.
When you hear his voice calling you, you throw off the old that you have been clinging to for years.
You jump up, full of expectation and joy.
You make your way to Jesus, who is waiting for you, also full of joy.
You point out the areas of your life and heart that need fixing, healing.
He heals what you ask him to heal,- maybe over a period of being with him.
You look deeply into his face, and then you answer his quiet invite to ‘follow him along the Way’
Mark, Sinead, can you hear him calling you? If he’s passing by, are you calling him? Wonderful things begin to happen when you hear each other’s call.
I hope this is food for your soul, to feed you during the coming week. It’s certainly food for me, and ‘I’m lovin’ it!’
God bliss you and bless you! Can we be praying for each other? Thanks!
Fr. Seamus.
P.S. Halloween is coming up on Wednesday. The ‘hallowed e’en’ or evening, that sacred evening before the Feast of all Saints, November 1st- and that’s the feast for you and all the wonderful and kindly people of the world. Saints are just sinners in whom God is still doing his work, in this life. So, enjoy your own Feast, this Thursday. ‘The mystery you celebrate is the mystery of yourselves!’ said Augustine long ago, about the Eucharist.
And Friday is the Feast of All Souls, Nov. 2nd, – when we pray for our loved ones who have died and who may need our prayers. ‘Sure don’t they need us, and won’t we need them!’ said a very old lady to me once.
SOUL FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY ADULT, 29th Sunday, OCT. 21, 2012.
29TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR B: OCTOBER 21ST. 2012.
‘SOUL FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY ADULT.’
See Home Page for Mass Readings for this Sunday. The Gospel is Mark 10:35-45.
A little background to today’s Gospel story:
If you say something three times, maybe you mean it. If Jesus said something three times to the Twelve, in fairly quick succession, we can be sure he meant it. And if Mark included this three times in his Gospel, he too had a very good reason for it.
Jesus three times (Mark 8, Mark 9, Mark 10) took the Twelve aside and told them very explicitly about his forthcoming passion and death,- about the 
handing over, the mockery, the scourging, and the putting to death. He was warning them that he was a different kind of ‘Messiah’,- a servant who would suffer greatly for his people.
Mark tells us these three moments, because thirty five years or so after Jesus’ death, the followers of Jesus, for whom Mark was writing this ‘Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God’ (Mark1:1) were also facing and experiencing being arrested, mocked, tortured, and killed. If it happened to the Master, it would happen to them. But Jesus rose from death. And so would they experience glory, after their awful deaths, if the remained faithful to Jesus.
Now, let’s come to today’s event: immediately after the third 
prophecy of the passion by Jesus (in verses 32-34), James and John, two of Jesus’ three closest circle (the other was Simon Peter), try to steal a march on the others of the Twelve. ‘In your kingdom, we want the seats on your right and your left!’ We want to be ‘the Greatest’! The two still didn’t have a clue about what Jesus was about. And Jesus tells them so!
He then turns the question back at them: ‘can you drink the cup that I must drink?’- in other words, ‘would you like to be on my right and my left in all my suffering?- in the Garden? When I’m mocked and scourged? On Calvary’s hill?’ Would you like to be ‘baptized with the baptism with which I must be baptized?’- not our sacrament of ‘Baptism’, but ‘are you willing to be steeped, up to your neck, in all that I stand for, and all that I must go through?’
Again, the pair hadn’t a clue, but still they said Yes. And indeed, years later, they willingly did pour out their lives for the Master and for others, they did experience all the mockery and ridicule and suffering that went with being an Apostle of the Master. It took them years to learn it, or maybe they learned it when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, came upon them at Pentecost and they were filled with the Holy Spirit, with courage and boldness, even to the point of death. They learned eventually all that the Master meant about being ‘servant’ and ‘slave to all’, and that is where their ultimate greatness was found. And for any of us, today, the same paradox holds true: ‘anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be First among you must be slave to all.’ That’s Jesus’ Upside-Down teaching for us;- we had some last week with the rich young man, we have it today with our brothers James and John, for whom it was a long time before the penny dropped.
The Master suffered greatly. And so will his followers.
The Master was servant to us all. And so will his true followers be. And we see it all around us, every day,- people of all ages gladly giving their 
energies, using their time and talents, in reaching out in love to people around them. We see it in young helping other young, in parents of small babies and children and teenagers giving unselfishly of themselves day in and day out. It’s all around us, in so many people.
That’s how to be at ‘the right hand and the left hand’ of the Master, in this kingdom of each day.
And every time we approach the altar to do as Jesus asked of us,- ‘Take this, this is my body given for you!’, ‘Take this, this is the chalice of my blood poured out for you!’ we are saying ‘Yes, we will!’ to Jesus asking us drink his cup, to share in his sufferings with him, to be steeped up to our necks in all that Jesus is about, to be servants of each other. Our receiving, and our AMEN! as we receive, is saying ‘YES, we are with you all the way, Lord!’ We are vowing ‘com-union’ with the Master in his life and death.
Holy Spirit, open our eyes and hearts to grasp this.
Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.
Letter to Sinead and Mark. October 21, 2012.
See ‘Mass Readings’ on Home Page, for the readings for this 29th Sunday. The Gospel is Mark 10:35-45.
29TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME OCTOBER 21ST, 2012.
Dear Sinead and Mark,
Hope your week was great! How did you make out with the challenges of last Sunday and the meeting of the rich young man with the Rabbi, Jesus. A tough one, that was. Jesus tried to ‘turn him upside down’ so the young man might see things from the perspective of the poor and those low down on the ladder.
Today, we meet two social climbers, who also happened to
be part of Jesus’ inner circle,- James, and his brother John. Again and again, throughout the three years of his ministry, Jesus would take his three closest friends aside, meaning Peter, James, and John. They saw him on the mountain, transfigured into a dazzling figure; they were with him when he restored the twelve-year old daughter of Jairus to life; they saw him again in the Garden of Gethsemane, bowed down and sweating great drops like blood, from the terror of what lay before him.
In our reading today, two of the same three, James and John, were trying to book the best seats beside Jesus in the ‘Kingdom’ which they expected would be something mightily impressive and powerful. ‘We want to sit on your right and on your left.’ Jesus tried to turn them upside down, too,- like the rich young man last week! ‘You really want to be beside me’, he asked them. ‘Ok, are you ready to be right beside me when I am scourged, or mocked, or crowned with thorns, or carrying my own cross to my own execution?’ What he asked them was ‘are you willing to drink the cup that I must drink of?’- and they knew he meant the cup of his suffering and death. ‘Are you willing to be baptized (that is, steeped completely) in all that I will have to go through, all of my rejection and ridicule and pain?’ The two lads, God bless their innocence, said ‘Yes! We are willing!’ Little did they understand what they were agreeing to.
And then, the others of the twelve were livid with the pair. How dare they try to steal a march on us? The others were hopping mad, as we say, because they too had wanted to be First, beside Jesus, in his Triumph. So Jesus had to turn them on their heads too! He took them all aside, he told them that they had got it all wrong. ‘If you’re going to be my disciple, practise being a servant of others.’ And then, he made that famous statement, which rings out like a bell from Jesus: ‘the son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ There’s the upside
down view of things that the Master teaches us. It’s the very opposite of Power, Prestige, Lording it over others, and that kind of …stuff. ‘Go down on your knees and wash each other’s feet!’- that’s what he told them later, and that’s what he did himself. He, the Lord and Master, washed his own disciples feet! That turned things on their head.
If you ever go to Lourdes, go there to see the Upside Down world 
that Jesus talks about. In Lourdes, the sick are the First Citizens, the Little ones are the Most Important, the Poor have a special honour. Those who seem to be ‘nothing’ at home are VIP’s in Lourdes. It’s a joy to see it. It sends you home thinking. And when you do get home, it’s great when you begin to make the same thing happen in your own community and parish,- caring for the most vulnerable, whoever they are. ‘I did not come to be served but to serve’. He did not come to have his own feet washed by some lowly servant: he came to be the lowly servant who washed the feet (that is, tenderly cared for the needs) of others.
Mark, Sinead, that’s the challenge for me for this coming week and beyond. Hope you will hear the challenge in your own lives, too.
Have a great week,- an Upside Down week! It’s the way to go!
God bliss you and bless you both!
Seamus.
email seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie
SOUL FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY ADULT: Oct. 14, 2012. 28th Sunday.
Soul Food for Hungry Adults: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 14th, 2012.
Gospel Reading: Mark 10:17-3o Jesus and the Rich Young Man.
You can’t be filled if you’re full. You cannot be ‘full-filled’! You can’t receive anything if you already have everything.
If you bring an empty glass, it can be filled, whether it’s big or small. 
But first, it must be emptied. I think it was St. Therese of Lisieux who said that whatever size glass, -meaning heart!- you bring to God, God will fill it if you want it filled.
The Rich Young Man in our Gospel story comes to Jesus, but he already has everything. He just wants to ‘buy’ his way into heaven, (or ‘eternal life’), by DOING this or that, whatever the Master would tell him. But he got upended by the answer he got! Jesus wanted to turn him upside down! If only he was willing to be ‘turned upside down’, then all the money would fall out of his pockets and he would be empty,- and ready to be filled by a relationship with Jesus.
You see, you cannot BUY heaven, you cannot DO something to get heaven as a reward. Because, real life is a pure Gift, poured into a heart that’s has emptied itself of its love of Things, and is ready to be filled up to overflowing by inviting the Son of God in.
Pardon the pun but you could say ‘the penny didn’t drop’, for the young man, because he would let go of nothing from the pockets of his heart, for God or for others in need, and he walked away sad. Jesus loved him, but had to let him go.
The following might make some sense, in relation to Jesus and the Rich Young Man: it’s from www.emptifulvessels.com.
Niagara
Niagara
of joy
awaits our opening up
to God who floods
the thirsting hearts
with love.
To thirst, to seek, to bring
the emptied vessel of the emptied heart
to One who longs for us,
to make a home in us:
Only this emptied, readied heart
can hold
the Infinite.
Repent with opened door,-
believe the love that
is being poured on us,
-the Christ.
(Seamus Devitt, C.Ss.R.)
A Redemptorist Ireland Website