Seeing is Believing: Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Ps 126

Mk 10:46-52

"Master I want to see."

What did Bartimaeus' voice sound like? Was it high or low, loud or soft? Was his tone angry, demanding, desperate or pleading? What did his face look like? Was he standing, kneeling, or bowed down before Jesus?

Enter the narrative as if you were in a movie. Place yourself in the scene. Recreate it in your mind. Compose a scene in your imagination placing yourself in the action and feeling the wind, or heat, or rain on your skin, is one of the fundamental practices of Ignatian contemplation as described in the Spiritual Exercises. Remain there as long as you wish or for as long as you can tolerate. What do you feel, what are you thinking, what is going on inside of you as you meditate on this?

We are all Bartimaeus at times. We are all periodically blind to God's presence in our lives. That blindness may afflict us suddenly as we stand at the bedside of a dying spouse or parent. It may hit as we gaze uncomprehendingly at a flooded home. Bartimaeus' plea, "I want to see" may escape our lips in different words: It may be articulated as the angry WHY of the suddenly bereaved, the desperate Where are you' as the cancer pain becomes worse. We ask: Where is your mercy? Where is your power? Where is your love? Where . . . . are. . . . You?

We are all Bartimaeus. At some point in our lives we are all that man sitting at the roadside blind, disoriented, confused and desperate to see. Difficulty seeing is one of the challenges of aging. Cataracts. Macular degeneration. Diabetic retinopathy. Glaucoma. All of them impair the ability to see. But even in uncomplicated aging, the normal changes in the eye result in diminished vision.

By age sixty only one-third the amount of light hits the retina compared with age twenty-one. That is why gray-haired old dudes . . . and I count myself among them . . . always have the high beams on. We can't see with low beams.

Seeing is more than the primary sense of vision that allows images to hit our retinas so we can navigate the world. There are other ways of seeing. It is not unusual to hear a student say, "I see" when a complicated concept has been made clear. "I see what you mean" has nothing to do with vision but with understanding and 'seeing' through the eyes of our mind and soul. "I see where this is going" may indicate that one understands the nature of an argument, the path of a relationship, or one of many abstractions that we can suddenly 'see.' Even when we are not blind to Jesus, we can always find ways to see Him better. Perhaps it is a matter of cleaning our glasses. It may be necessary to get a stronger prescription. Or we may experience the joy of the startling improvement in vision after cataract extraction and lens implant. With prayer, frequent participation in the sacraments, and contemplation on God's word, we can always see better, we can always improve our vision. Whenever you hear the gospel narratives of Jesus' healing miracles, it is important to remember that those miracles did not create faith in a vacuum.

The healing miracles were not meant to awe, amaze, confuse, or impress an audience. With one or two exceptions faith in Jesus' willingness to make him whole, faith in Jesus' desire to return her to society, faith in Jesus' ability to make them clean prompted the petitions to Jesus. We heard Bartimaeus say: "I want to see." Jesus said nothing about vision to Bartimaeus. He said, "Go . . your faith has made you well." That's all. A simple command and reassurance. "Go, your faith has made you well."

We heard in the psalm: "they left in tears I will comfort them as I lead them back I will guide them." Sometimes we need Jesus to find us when we are lost, when we are blind to God's love, when we are confused or angry or hurting.

All of us go out in life full of tears, carrying seed for the sowing. All of us go out in life to engage in backbreaking, exhausting and painful work. That is the reality of life. It is the burden we bear as humans. But as we come back rejoicing and bringing in the sheaves, the results of our labor, we realize what God has done for us, and we know what God will do for us.

"Master, I want to see."

That would be a fine prayer today and all of the coming week.

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The Ljubljana Marathon was run last week. It was run a few days after I arrive in LJ in October of 2016. It was one of the great days of my time there, spent in the company of a Lithuanian medical student who thought to go to the top of Nebotičnik, the skyscraper. We also had a drink up there. Much better mobility allowed than in Boston, especially after the "tousle-haired terrorist" attacked the finish line in Boston. May he rot in prison..

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Feast of St. Luke

 

We read in Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, “Luke the beloved physician sends you his greetings . . .”  Though the evidence is slim, tradition holds that Luke was a physician. That tradition suggests the overlap in the vocations of priests and physicians. 

 

Few books capture the reality of the demands, sacrifices, and pain that are part of the vocations to medicine or priesthood.  Among the small number that do is a 1947 novel written that proved prophetic when covid emerged. 

While relevant to all who had to cope with the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual crises driven by that pandemic,  it holds particular import for physicians and priests. 

 

The Plague  by Albert Camus, should be required reading for anyone studying medicine or preparing for ordination. It limns the anguish of confronting the most vexing problem in the universe and the most painful cross under which our vocations converge.

 

Dr. Rieux recognized the infection spreading through Oran as bubonic plague. He approached it courageously and with unflinching commitment to his patients.  Midway through the book we hear Rieux speaking with Tarrou, an enigmatic character who became a friend.  At the end of a long conversation that cannot be summarized easily we read: “Tarrou asked  ‘Who taught you all this Doctor?’   The was immediate, ‘Suffering.’”

 

If we allow it, suffering instructs physician, priest, patient, and others.  That teaching takes time, demands courage, and requires a willingness to recognize and endure one’s own pain, impotence, and rage so as to help the other.  None of us emerges unchanged from the confrontation with suffering.  In time we learn the truth described by Aeschylus,

 

“He who learns must suffer, and, even in our sleep,

pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart,

and in our own despair, against our will,

comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”

 

Benedictine Basil Cardinal Hume, the late Archbishop of Westminster, was the son of a physician.  He accurately described the overlap between the vocations of priest and physician in a short meditation:  “The physician and the priest have much in common.  Both are concerned with people and their well-being.  Our starting points are different but inevitably we discover that our interest converges.  The experience of people tells us, priests and physicians, that many are still bewildered, indeed haunted, by the perennial problems of pain, suffering, and death.” 

 

As it was for the characters limned by Camus, so it is for us today.

 

The late Ned Cassem, SJ, MD was the consummate physician. Chief of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital for thirteen years, Ned possessed tremendous empathy for, and sensitivity to, the suffering of others.  Among his papers was one titled CREED.  Three tenets of creed fleshed out Cardinal Hume as if Ned were writing midrash:

 

"As clinicians our responsibility is to always protect the patient."

 

"The secret of care for the patient is caring for the patient."

 

"The core of the doctor's healing role is loving the patient as the doctor loves himself."

 

One can address these  to physicians or priests with equal relevance.

 

Today, every physician has multiple options to sin through destroying life in the womb, desecrating and mutilating the human body for bizarre purposes, by impairing a child’s physical, mental, and cognitive development through puberty blockers, and by participating in the planned execution of the sick elderly. When commenting on his opposition to euthanasia to solve the problem of suffering,  Robert Twycross a British hospice physician wrote, “Any physician who has never considered killing a suffering patient is either very new to the profession . . . or singularly lacking in empathy.”  He went on to explain why euthanasia must never be an option.  The same applies to priests.

 

Priests and physicians suffer in concert with the patient unless, as suggested by Twycross, they are totally devoid of empathy.  Each is consumed by the awful and angry protest  why.  Each may nurture the desire to end the perceived meaninglessness immediately.  Physician and priest look toward the heavens.  Both scream WHY?   But the answer never comes.  The answer never will come.   We can only slog away trying to diminish suffering as much as we can, in whatever manner we can, and when we can, one patient at a time. 

 

John Paul II wrote in Salvifici Doloris that: “(suffering)  is a universal theme that accompanies man at every point on earth: . . .  it co-exists with him in the world, and thus demands to be constantly reconsidered.”  He goes on to note: “Man suffers in different ways not always considered by medicine, Suffering is wider than sickness, more complex . . . more deeply rooted in humanity itself. A certain idea of this problem comes to us from the distinction between physical suffering and moral suffering.”  Camus outlined and elaborated that distinction.

 

Neither physician nor priest can answer the why of suffering, but each is obliged to offer understanding and care rather than death to the one who suffers, each is called by his vocation to share in the burden of suffering in whatever way possible. 

 

Just as the plague was ending and the city gates were to open, Tarrou died of an atypical presentation of the disease.  Knowing the inevitable outcome if it truly were plague, Rieux took Tarrou into his own home.  In a few words describing the doctor looking down at his friend’s body, Camus summarized the anguish that physicians and priests encounter throughout their lives.

 

“The doctor could not tell if Tarrou had found peace, now that all was over, but for himself he had a feeling that no peace was possible to him henceforth, any more than there can be an armistice for a mother bereaved of her son or for a man who buries his friend.”

 

When confronting suffering both priests and physicians find themselves praying as Jesus did in Gethsemane, that the cup be taken from them.  But like Jesus, and like Dr. Rieux, if they are to truly live their vocations they must drink the cup to the dregs. 

 

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Photos are from the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in N'Djamena.  It was quite the challenge to adapt to the heat, lack of electricity, water, or tech.  

 

An old 12 lead one-channel EKG.  Teaching students how to apply the leads using a classmate as the teaching model, a long-time custom in med school. 

Examining

Young man with hepatitis.  It proved to be Hep A and he was allowed to go home

Pumps are not universal.  Hadn't seen a glass IV bottle in a long time.

Storing medications for dispensing in the pharmacy.

Statue of the Parable of the Good Samaritan

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

With Apologies to ABBA, Money, Money, Money: Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Wis 7:7-11

Ps 90:12-12, 13-15, 16-17

Heb 4:12-13

Mk 10:17-30

 

Some of the most exquisite images in scripture describe the attributes of Wisdom.  Wisdom is not innate or genetic. It is never present at birth or the early stages of development, which go up to 25 or older.  It has nothing to do with IQ. It has even less to do with educational level or number of advanced degrees.  Wisdom is acquired and molded through long experience of success and failure, of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It is the special possession of those with a listening heart who have the courage to enter into silence, prayer, and self-reflection.

 

Wisdom defines and supports civilization. It is fundamental to being human.  Wisdom definitively separates us from all lower animals, no matter how cute, cuddly, majestic, or clever they might be, only humans are capable of wisdom. Somewhere in the bowels of MIT worker bees are slaving away at artificial intelligence.  I’ve yet to hear of anyone working on artificial Wisdom.  A computer can be programmed to check the spelling of and translate the lyrical passage just proclaimed, but no computer can be programmed to create something as splendid from its circuit boards. 

 

The Wisdom literature is not inert. It is not an historical curiosity that explained the world to the benighted, non-scientific, and unsophisticated peoples of the Ancient Near East.  They weren’t all that different from us today.  Wisdom recognizes and supports all that God does in the world.  It should undergird all that we do in the world.

 

Though there is a pragmatic dimension to it, the Wisdom literature is not a handbook along the lines of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It is much more than that.  Wisdom reveals the mystery of God, a mystery we cannot begin to approach through any literature but the mystical, the numinous, the poetic, and perhaps through music.  We come closer to understanding the mystery of God through the poetry of the psalms than we do through books of systematic theology or historical-literary criticism of the Gospels.

 

British neuropsychiatrist Sir Michael Trimble published The Soul in the Brain in 2007. The book emphasizes neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and neurophysiology while outlining the role of the brain in the genesis of language and art.

 

Language and art are important components of religious belief and perhaps the most important means of transmitting that belief from generation to generation.

It is a brilliant book that also considers the ancient wisdom of philosophers and theologians.

 

Whether speaking of the Ancient Near East or the early years of the 21st century

one must ask what Jesus meant by the startling and uncomfortable image

of the camel passing through the needle's eye more easily than the wealthy.  Does wealth automatically condemn?  Are all the wealthy excluded

from the Kingdom of God? More specifically, what income level is damning?

Should I have saved all my W-2s?

 

Jesus is not warning against wealth as wealth.  He is warning about a human behavior that hasn't changed in millennia. That behavior is the drive to acquire more and more wealth.  The drive that demands more and more time, energy, and attention to maintain and increase that wealth, to the detriment of caring for and about others, if not outright destroying them. Too often the more one has

the less one shares. 

 

We've become almost jaded to news detailing the latest financial scandals

involving obscenely paid executives who appear to want even more. The saga of the recently imprisoned Elizabeth Holmes, the Stanford dropout foundress of Theranos Corporation, is a tale of greed mixed with the pursuit of wealth, fame, and magazine covers. She combined those desires with a callous and criminal disregard for the health of others.

 

As a society we tolerate, and even rationalize, the greed of overpaid athletes and their agents whose whiny demands for more and more astronomical salaries, have pushed the cost of taking a family to a game beyond the ability of many.  In an effort to increase its revenues, the NCAA is systematically destroying college football.  The impact of the business for profit model on medicine is a separate homily. There are also, of course,  middle and lower level atrocities in the pursuit of wealth committed by those with similar mindsets but much smaller budgets. 

Money seems to desire more money no matter the cost to others or the cost to oneself, as long as one doesn’t get caught.

 

It is not the cold hard cash that Jesus is decrying. Jesus is warning against the mind-set of wealth craving more wealth that is the well-beyond what is needed.  Unlike membership in a country club or a place on a Forbes Magazine list

salvation does not derive from human achievement.  One is not automatically saved because of rank, bank balance, or the number of toys one has upon death. 

Wealth is not one of the keys to the kingdom. It need not be an impediment to entering the kingdom,  but it will never move anyone to the front of the line.

 

True wealth is not what one possesses, but what one gives. True wealth is not what one hoards, but what one shares. The more we share our treasure with those in need, the treasure of money, time,  or the gift of presence, the larger the eye of that needle becomes. 

 

. . .  and that there camel gallops right on through.

 

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Photos are black and whites from the monastery.  When the inevitable day comes that I won't be able to get out with a camera--and the day will come--I hope to spend the time converting and processing much of what I've taken into black and white.   

The refectory set up for the midday meal which, in most monasteries is the main meal of the day.

Vessels in the small sacristy.

Leading to the consecration

Crucifix in a chapel

All monasteries need a body of water of three

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

 

 

An Affair to Remember: Homily for 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Gn 2:18-24

Ps 128

Heb 2:9-11

Mk 10:2-16

 

There are certain readings that make a homilist break out into a cold sweat when he looks ahead for the coming week.  Today's readings are of that type. There are, of  course, a few ways to avoid saying anything controversial. Tell a few cute stories from your past about how your family stopped at Dunkin' Donuts after Mass every Sunday,

Toss in a joke about a rabbi, a priest, and a minister . . . . . Use a few pious platitudes.  Decide it would be a good day for the deacon to preach Or plunge in.

 

Were a teacher or professor in a public school to say to a class today that "from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female" and indicate that there are only two sexes, (genders are for French nouns) the teacher's job would be on the line for contradicting the delusion that men can become women, women can become men, with multiple other options between.  But that is a separate homily.

 

Then we come to the matter of divorce,

 

Donahue and Harrington begin their commentary on this passage with a short summary that says it all: "Mark presents Jesus’ radical teachings on marriage and divorce.”  Radical is the key word.  The teaching on divorce is as radical, challenging, and difficult today as it was when Jesus answered first with a question of his own and then a teaching on marriage.

 

Jesus’ teaching was radical in His time because of the nature of marriage. Marriages were arranged and negotiated for financial, political, and social reasons.  Love or attraction had nothing to do with marriage. After a couple was engaged or betrothed they got to know each other for about a year before the woman moved into the man’s home. 

 

In their attempt to trap Jesus  into giving deviant teaching on marriage the Pharisees were alluding to two texts in Deuteronomy

regarding divorce.  Jesus, on his part, cited more ancient writing  from Genesis, as expressing God’s original plan:  “and the two shall become one flesh.”  Then, He elaborated and extended the teaching: 

“Therefore what God has joined together, no human must separate.”  

This charge is repeated following the giving of consent in the sacrament of marriage as celebrated in the Catholic Church. 

 

Divorce was the exclusive prerogative of the husband in the Ancient Near East.  The procedure was simple.  The husband gave the wife a certificate of divorce and sent her away.  She was now free to marry someone else.  

 

From Donahue and Harrington again, “In a society in which divorce was widely accepted and the controversial issue was the grounds for divorce Jesus’ teaching about no divorce went against custom and the cultural grain.”  The more things change the more the stay the same. 

 

The early Church struggled with the question as mightily as we do today.  There is Paul’s advice to those who found themselves in “mixed marriages” or marriages in which one party reverted to paganism.  And there are the “exceptive clauses” found in Matthew which permit divorce for porneia or what is translated as unchastity

though that translation does not fully capture what Matthew meant.  We continue to struggle with the meaning and implications of Jesus’ teaching on marriage today. 

 

Some time in the early 2000s I first heard a woman with whom I worked gleefully note that even at the wedding the family was referring to the groom as her sister's starter husband.  Even more mystifying are the celebrity types, --and many non-celebrities-- who have been "married" six or seven times.  After a certain point it seems silly to bother with the paperwork.

 

When considering Jesus' teachingwe have to ask if it Is an ideal to shoot for, a challenge to be faced,an extreme example, or divine law?”

 

Another line of questioning asks which part of New Testament evidence is more compelling: Jesus’ prohibition of divorce or the exceptions introduced by Paul and Matthew?”  These questions are destined to be debated

for a very long time

 

In today's world and, as was probably true in Jesus' time, there are marriages that never should have taken place and that must end. 

 

Perhaps one of the saddest commentaries on the misuse of Church teaching against divorce comes from the life of the actor Spencer Tracy.  Tracy carried on a twenty-five year long adulterous affair with Katherine Hepburn. The affair ended only with his death.  However, he remained legally and ecclesiastically married to his Episcopalian wife for 44 years.  As several sources confirmed he wouldn’t divorce his wife to marry Katherine because of his "staunch Catholicism." 

Apparently adultery posed no problem whatsoever to that staunch Catholicism.  

 

Some see Tracy and Hepburn, and similar stories as great romantic epics, when, in fact, they are tawdry stories of adultery. 

 

We live in odd and very troubling times marked by a frightening arrogance and egocentrism,  times in desperate need of prayer.  

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The photos are from St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, PA the first Benedictine monastery in the U.S. founded in 1846.  Alas, the original abbey burned.  The new one was built in brutalist style.  When you can't say something nice say nothing.  The grounds are beautiful. 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD