Ic-3-11

30^th Sunday B, October 26, 2003

One need not be a self professed pessimist–a ‘negative person,’ as we like to say–to admit that human life is oftentimes frustrating. Surrounded as we are by so many evidences of God’s goodness in the material world, by truth, beauty, knowledge, by joy and freedom, we nevertheless find that success in obtaining the good life and in being holy and happy is never entirely achieved. There always seems to be a lack of fulfillment in the total sense, even though at times one can get the temporary sensation that all is well. But these moments of repose do not detract from the general restlessness that underlies and accompanies our human condition; and this is so because there ever remains in us the constant reminders of limitation and want, of fallibility, and our ever-present proneness to sin.

The figure of the blind man Bartimaeus in this Gospel serves as the representative of everyman. He is more than an historical figure who has the supreme good fortune of a meeting with Jesus Christ who reverses his blindness. We have there standing before the Lord a true picture of ourselves, if we will take to heart the opportunity for self-reflection. There is no one however healthy in body who does not have some physical defect–great or small, evident or latent; there is no one however brilliant who knows all; there is no one so good as to be incapable of sin; there is no one who is so happy that he has no share in sorrow. While we readily find these limitations properly ‘human,’ there is really no necessity for things to be such as they are. God allows want, illness, inability, defects of mind and body, anguish and pain, failure and loss. By faith we can account for these, cumulatively, as the just desserts of the original rebellion of the human race against God. And everyman must enter life bearing his own portion of the burden that sin has placed on him. And so, we come to recognize not only the proofs of God’s existence by His goodness that we find in the created world, but we come also to know Him through our limitations, want, and defects that arouse in us the desire to seek God for remedy. To say it once again: from the viewpoint of faith, one can come by experience to know God both from the abundance of His goodness and by the want of it in this or that particular thing.

It is the Providence of God, His wisdom, that should make us meditate on the reasons He allows the human condition to bear hardship, limitation and infirmity. God does not will our misery. There must be a reason then why God permits evils and privations to come our way. (Of course, to frame the matter in this way rather than to accuse God for allowing the diverse forms of evil to be in the world is already the frame of mind of a believer, one who comes to God with a humble mind, seeking to understand, rather than merely to be understood.) To see what may be God’s reasons for the heartache, sufferings and limitations of humanity we can only imagine a paradise in which all would be ours and our every want and need satisfied: a heaven on earth. If such an existence were ours, I wonder what recourse we might have to God. Would we rather not be so contented as to ignore the invisible Provider of this abundant goodness and become so immersed in the thrill of this world’s bounty that we would rarely, if ever, look beyond and above it? I fear that for many people such a utopian world would be enough for them: an earthly paradise without God. But this attitude, this predisposition, comes from one who is a weak believer at best, who in fact ignores the reality of God’s existence and of his resultant duty to know, love and serve Him. If our every need were met and our every desire fulfilled here, would we come to God in prayer, worship Him, and seek union with Him in an altogether superlative kind of joy and fulfillment that will never come to an end: heaven, in fact? My guess is that the answer would be ‘no.’ There is good reason why God allows us to taste both an immense measure of goodness in this life and yet to feel varying degrees (according to our capacities) deprivation. It is that void and that hurt that makes us seek God. Even sin serves God’s purposes by making us experience guilt: the sting of having offended God, without which we might never go to Him and seek His mercy and absolution.

God has planned all things to work out for our advantage, if only we would use them for our profit. While it is perfectly understandable that we should want to improve our lot and to correct our deficiencies (God wills our betterment too!), yet God, in His wisdom, has not arranged that all things should be given us. He has made us taste just enough of the good and yet to have just enough of a lack of it that we should want to seek Him, the source of goodness, and to be with Him forever and ever.

A brief self-examination of ourselves before God can be immensely profitable. How am I using the good things I have for God’s glory? Maybe not all that much. But how about this question: how am I using my limitations, defects, sinful tendencies, and lack of goods to throw myself upon God’s mercy and providence so that I may cling to Him with ever greater tenacity? God certainly employs unusual methods to achieve His purposes. If we would not likely seek Him for Himself alone, He gives us just a bit of discomfort and uneasiness (according to our capacity) to come to Him for complete fulfillment. "O wise God, who use every means to make us aware of You and to turn to You. How foolish we have been to complain and to run from You, the Source of all good and the End of all desire!"

As so often happens, our continuous reading from the Imitation of Christ fits in well with our Scriptures. The author writes as if God were speaking:

To seek God above all else and to see His hand in every circumstance, good and bad, is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Docility, humility, wisdom and acceptance: O God, grant us these things so that nothing of Your holy will may be lost on us!