Seeing God's Way

“The pressure of a group can compromise our resolve for what we truly cherish in our hearts, that which our inner urging of faith is calling us to do—and so we remain silent”

“When Christ gives Bartimaeus his sight, he doesn’t endow him with a unique superpower, but restores to him something which belongs to his life as a human being”

“Jesus comes to us in the same way, as our companion, but yet He comes to us physically through the people in our lives – our friends, our family, our spouse, our co-workers, strangers…”

“Are we using titles for him without any real grasp of their significance? Or, is Christ the one who teaches us about the proper meaning and reality of human life – and who offers the realisation of it.”

“When we have the chance to help someone grow morally and spiritually, do we hold back because of laziness, or fear – or because it secretly pleases us to remain better than they are? If so, we begrudge Jesus’ generosity.”

“Might it not be the case that the order of the world is ultimately the order of the purposes of a good God, a loving God, who has chosen to intervene in history so as to draw human beings to himself?”

“Only when we can see and accept our weaknesses can we allow Christ to come and serve us”

“It was far, far more important that the man in the story followed Jesus than that he just saw other people and things. Following Jesus’ way, he saw far more.”

“Christ through the Church still calls, still gathers together, encourages to faith. Christ is the pledge of unity of worship, of unity of communion, of unity of teaching.”

“Bartimaeus reminds us that first we should ask to see, because it is only when we see and understand the world as it really is, that we will be able to make the world what God wants it to be”

“Jesus heard the cry of the poor, the cry of the outcast of society and turned the table on those who tried to stop him getting to Jesus by asking them to call the blind man to him”

“So Bartimaeus is evocative of all of us. Blind, beggars, sinners, seeking salvation and now being called into the Church to find it”

“Are we willing to see with new eyes the abundance of what God offers us”

“Many times in Mark's Gospel, Jesus is presented as the stillpoint in a chaotic world”

“sin is a problem with the will and with the mind. They become perverse and twisted. Therefore if the mind and the will are the problem then more mind and more will aint going to be the solution.”

“I don't care how much you got in the eyes of the world, I don't care how rich and famous and popular, successful you are, if you have not surrendered to the grace of God you are blind”

“But our God has not ceased to cross our way. He is not yet done with us. At the appointed time he will, he will surely come to meet us on the road where we are lying wretched and seeking for aid.”

“Lord, help us to see our vocations, help us to see what you would have us do, and help us to see in every human being someone worthy of love, that no one would be to us an “overlookable” or “throw-away” human”

“We must push through the ups and downs, but do so at a steady pace. And we must look to Jesus for that pace, and He will meet us where we are, and help us to get where He knows we can be.”

“These are the people God brings back and restores: not just the strong, the gifted, and those who can pay for assistance, but the frail and vulnerable – no one is left out”

“He's being summoned, ekaleó, into communion with Jesus. That's the Church, everybody. It's not a bureaucratic organization, it's a relationship to the one who's called us.”

“figuratively speaking, we're all exiles in the measure that we've wandered away from the Lord”