Today’s Gospel offers a beautiful story of encounter, healing, faith, and discipleship, and offers many insights and lessons. Let us delve deeper into one of the moments in the story and one of its many insights.

Jesus is going through Jericho and a blind man, Bartimaeus, hears of it, and begins to call out to him. He eventually succeeds in catching Jesus’ attention and Jesus calls for him to come over. In response, Bartimaeus doesn’t just get up and walk over. No, Mark tells us that Bartimaeus threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.

It isn’t just the enthusiasm that should catch our attention. The cloak he threw would be the cloak upon which he’d collect whatever coins people might throw his way, a cloak he needed as a beggar. But he threw that aside, confident that he wouldn’t need it anymore, ready to let that way of life go, on the hope that Jesus would make something different possible.

In response to Jesus’ question, Bartimaeus tells Jesus that he wants to see. Jesus gives him that, and more. Not only does Bartimaeus receive his eyesight, even more importantly, he is granted salvation because of his faith. Bartimaeus responds by becoming a disciple of Jesus – by embracing that new life he had been ready for when he’d heard Jesus was coming through town, and following Jesus on the way.

Bartimaeus doesn’t just go from being blind to having sight. He has faith that enables him to let go of his previous life and embark on a new one – one of discipleship. Sometimes, when we hear healing stories such as this one, we can start to wonder, Why not me? Why doesn’t the Lord heal my loved one? Am I not praying enough? Have I not persevered enough? All of these are understandable questions, arising from a place of doubt rather than faith. Faith lets us ask, “What will I do with the Lord’s answer to my prayer?”

If we think about it, we can see that sometimes, when we pray, rather than praying for change, we are praying for restoration, for things to go back to the way they were, and we are praying for that miracle that will make it possible. If life was good for us, but something has turned it upside down, it makes sense that we would long for and pray for things to go back to the way they were.

But today’s Gospel reminds us that sometimes the Lord is about more than restoration. Sometimes, that perseverance in prayer and that encounter with the Lord are meant to prompt a change, perhaps a radical change, in us, one that orients us to be willing to let go of everything and follow him.

Let today’s Gospel challenge us to consider whether the Lord is inviting us to find that new way of seeing and being. Are we ready to throw aside our cloak and accept his healing and salvation?

(Fr. Michał Pająk, OMI, Oct. 27, 2024)