October 2003

October 19, 2003 - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B

I’m not a big sports fan but, like millions of others,
I recently found myself reading sections of the newspaper
I don’t usually read
and watching baseball games on television
rather than channel surfing past them.
Maybe it’s a professional preoccupation of mine,
but I wonder if you noticed, as I did,
how often the Fox camera scanned individual fans at the games
showing them with bowed heads, closed eyes,
and hands folded in obvious gestures of prayers.
A lot of the fans at Fenway Park and in Yankee Stadium
looked very much like YOU look - as I see you in prayer at Mass.
Then, of course, you have ball players who make the sign of the Cross
when they step up to the plate,
and athletes whose post-game interviews begin with words like,
“All the praise to God! All the praise to Jesus!”

Well, I don’t believe that somehow God blessed the Yankees
and allowed some “curse” to dog the Red Sox. Well,
I’ve never been easily convinced that God takes sides
in baseball or football or any other kind of game.
And I’m never quite sure if that sign of the cross before a big play
is really prayer or superstition.

In the story in today’s gospel,
Jesus himself is a little wary of some prayer.
James and John are jockeying here
to be named co-captains of the apostles.
They asking Jesus for the favor of sitting at his right and left
in the kingdom of glory.
But Jesus cautions them in their prayer.
He says, “You don’t know what you’re asking for!”
We’ve all heard people say, “Be careful what you wish for!”

The Lord’s caution here
is that those who want to sit alongside him in glory
will first have to walk with him in his suffering.
Or as he puts it to James and John:
“Can you drink the cup that I drink?”
Can we take even a sip from the cup of suffering, the cup of service,
from which the Lord drank so deeply for us?
A sip… Can we take even a sip?
Very often in a community, in a parish like ours,
the more compelling question might be this:
“Will we make the time to take even a sip
from that cup that serves our neighbors?”

One evening this past week, eight girls from our parish
(7 eighth graders and 1 sixth grader) –and three parents-
picked up vegetables at the Food Project in Lincoln
and delivered them to Lazarus House in Lawrence.
Did I mention
how many vegetables these 8 girls delivered in one evening?
900 pounds!
It’s pretty amazing how much can be done,
how many hungry people can be fed
if eight middle schoolers are willing to give up one evening
and take a sip from the Lord’s cup of service for others.

This past week Fr. Dick DeVeer came to our parish to speak about Haiti.
In the offering basket at the end of the evening
was a gift from two boys in our parish
who had decided to tithe, to give a tenth of their summer earnings
for the poor of Haiti.

How much can happen when we remember
that the Lord offers his cup of service to us - and invites us to take a sip.

I recently received this email from our parishioners
who spends part of Sunday morning
bringing the holy communion of our table
to those who are too sick to join us here in church.
He wrote:
“Today as I was leaving the nursing home,
having brought communion to 9 people there,
I felt strongly how privileged I was
to be able bring them comfort, joy,
and a sense of connectedness to our prayer in the parish -
especially the less affluent ones who live on ward 5.
I had a great sense of being used by the Lord
by doing what He wanted done for those folks.”
“A great sense of “being used by the Lord.”
Most of us don’t ever want to feel “used.”
But here’s a man grateful to be used by the Lord,
to take a sip from that cup of service
from which the Lord invites us all to drink.

Driving home this point about serving others,
Jesus tells his friends that if they want to be great
then they need to make themselves servants, even slaves,
of the needs of others.

I’m sure we’ve all prayed for many things in the past week.
Many here today might have prayed for the Red Sox,
and a few might have prayed for the Yankees.
We may have prayed for peace and for our troops overseas.
We have prayed for little Patrick, lost in the woods,
and now for his family who grieve his death.
We have prayed for family members and friends
who are sick, or troubled in some way.

As we come to the Lord’s table now,
let us pray for ourselves and for our parish
that even as we take a taste of the bread which is our life
and a sip from the cup of the Lord’s blood,
let us pray that this sacrament will nourish us
to take a sip from that cup of service
which Jesus, our high priest, offers us.
Let us find the time to serve one another
so that we might confidently approach the throne of grace
to receive mercy and help
from the One who drank deeply of the cup of suffering for us.

- Rev. Austin Fleming

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - B October 26, 2003
(Jeremiah 31:7-9 Hebrews 5:1-6 Mark 10:46-52)

Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of blind people in the bible?

Blindness was very common in the ancient middle east.
More often than not,
blindness was the result trachoma, a contagious infection
of the mucous lining of the eyelids and cornea.
This disease was transmitted by flies and by poor hygiene.
A simple practice like washing one’s hands would have helped,
but scarcity of water prevented the poor from doing this.
(See The Cultural World of Jesus - Cycle B, by John Pilch, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN, 1966)

Nearly 2,000 years after Jesus cured Bartimaeus’ blindness,
the ancient disease trachoma is still a serious health problem.
In fact, trachoma is the world’s leading preventable cause of blindness.

Trachoma is a community disease,
most often passed from child to child, or child to mother.
Mothers of young children are particularly susceptible.
In fact, three out of four people blinded by trachoma are women.

Trachoma is treatable.
An overall community control program
costs as little as 10 cents per person, per year.

Antibiotic treatment for those infected with trachoma
is less than 50 cents per person
for the average dose of two tubes of ointment.

The direct cost of surgery for advanced cases is less than $20.00.
How many people would benefit from this inexpensive care?
- There are now 5.5 million people in the world
who are blind or at high risk of blindness from trachoma.
- An additional 150 million, 75% of them children,
have active trachoma and are in need of treatment.

I’m embarrassed to say that until I worked on this homily,
I had never heard of trachoma.
And I find myself asking the question,
“How could I be so ‘blind’ to something so widespread?”

The point of my homily is not to instruct you about trachoma,
nor to ask you for money to fund treatment for those who have it.

The point of my homily is the blindness of Bartimaeus
who saw that he was blind - and the response of Jesus.

- I wonder how long Bartimaeus had been sitting by the side of that road,
begging money from strangers?
- I wonder how many people might have tossed him a coin,
but never said a word to him?
- I wonder how many people had seen this beggar, day by day,
and had never SEEN that he was blind?

These questions prompt me to ask myself:
- How much of the world’s suffering am I blind to?
- How much of people’s suffering escapes my notice?
- How much does “compassion fatigue”
dull my reaction to the suffering I am aware of?
- How much suffering is invisible to me
because of the “first world filter” through which I view everything?

How grateful you and I should be
- to our parish Social Action and Justice Commission
- to our parish St. Vincent dePaul Society
- to the Saint Boniface Haiti Foundation
and for all the ways in which these three organizations
prevent the “blindness” that might keep us from seeing
- the suffering in our own community in Concord
- the poverty in Boston and Lawrence
- the needs of the Navajo poor
- and the health needs of Haitian people
who live in country where the ancient disease trachoma
is still a reality.

There are many ways to be blind
and there is much suffering which we do not see.
Jesus once addressed this issue
when he spoke of a king who separated people
as one might separate sheep from goats.
Those separated out as goats asked the king,
“But when did we see you hungry, or thirsty,
or naked, or in prison, or homeless -or blind-
and not care for your needs?”
And the king said,
“As long as you neglected to care for the poorest around you,
you neglected to care for me.”
In other words,
we can be held accountable
even for the needs of those we failed to see...

Last week, one of our middle school religious education classes,
seventh graders, visited the Boston Rescue Mission
and served a meal for homeless people.
This will be a monthly project for this class.
What a great opportunity that young people offer service
that might prevent them for growing blind to the needs of others...

Do I need a spiritual eye exam?
Do I need to try to see what we’re missing?
Do I need to be healed by Jesus
of whatever blinds me to the needs of others?

We’re about to go to the Lord’s table
where Jesus opens our eyes to his presence
in a morsel of bread and a sip from a cup.
May the food we share here,
his very body and blood,
open our eyes to his presence wherever he might meet us,
especially in the needs of others.

Rev. Austin Fleming