May 28, 2026
Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 350
Reading 1
Beloved:
Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk
so that through it you may grow into salvation,
for you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings
but chosen and precious in the sight of God,
and, like living stones,
let yourselves be built into a spiritual house
to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people of his own,
so that you may announce the praises of him
who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Once you were no people
but now you are God’s people;
you had not received mercy
but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners
to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul.
Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles,
so that if they speak of you as evildoers,
they may observe your good works
and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (2c) Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise;
Give thanks to him;
bless his name.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
The LORD is good:
his kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
whoever follows me will have the light of life.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a
sizable crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.
On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say,
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”
Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052826.cfm
Commentary on 1
Peter 2:2-5,9-12
Yesterday Peter was speaking of the gift of God’s word to
us. Today he sees that word as a form of nourishment—”spiritual milk”. We
should be as eager as newborn babies for that “milk”. The author is speaking
figuratively. Milk is not to be understood here as in food for the immature
in unfavourable contrast to solid food (compare to 1 Cor 3:2 or Heb
5:12-14). With the complete nourishing ‘milk’ of God’s word we “grow into
salvation”.
For those who have already had a first taste of what God has
given to us in Christ (“O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those
who take refuge in him.”—Ps 34:8), there is an eagerness for that nourishment
which will lead to growth and maturity in the Spirit. Since this taste has
proved satisfactory, the believers are urged to long for additional spiritual
food.
Peter now moves to another image when he speaks of Christ as
a “living stone”, rejected by many, but precious in the eyes of God. This
‘stone’ is the very foundation of the Church. It is a ‘living stone’ both
in the sense of referring to the real person of Christ and as a source of life
for others. Christ as the Son of God has life in himself. He is
also “living water” (Jn 4:10-14; 7:38), “living bread” (Jn 6:51) and the
“living way” (Heb 10:20).
It is a stone chosen by God, but so often rejected by human
beings. In his addresses to the people in Acts, Peter repeatedly makes a
contrast between the hostility of the unbelieving towards Jesus and God’s
exaltation of him.
But not only that, the Christians, too, are living stones:
…built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood…
They derive their life from Christ, who is the original
living Stone to whom they have come, the life-giving Spirit. These
references to stones may well reflect Jesus’ words to Peter in Matthew’s Gospel
(16:18), where he tells him he is the Rock on which the whole structure of the
future community is to be built, called here in today’s reading a “spiritual
house”.
The house is spiritual in a metaphorical sense, but also in
that it is formed and indwelt by the Spirit of God. Every stone in the
house has been made alive by the Holy Spirit, sent by the exalted living Stone,
Jesus Christ. The Old Testament Temple provides the background of this
passage. It reminds us of Paul’s telling Christians that they are the temples
of the Holy Spirit, and where the letter to the Ephesians speaks of each
Christian as a stone contributing to building up the whole edifice of the
Church. For now it is the people and not a building which is the Temple
housing God’s presence in the world. Paul will say to the Corinthians:
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s
Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16 and Eph 2:19-22)
The purpose of that sacred building is to be a “holy
priesthood”. This is the priesthood of the whole body of believers.
As priests, believers are to:
- reflect
the holiness of God and that of their high priest,
- offer
spiritual sacrifices,
- intercede
for others before God,
- represent
God in the presence of all.
Through our priesthood we offer “spiritual sacrifices”, as
opposed to sacrifices of animals and fruits. These can include: bodies
offered to God (Rom 12:1), offerings of money or material goods (Phil 4:18; Heb
13:16), sacrifices of praise to God (Heb 13:15) and sacrifices of doing good
(Heb 13:16). These sacrifices are “acceptable to God” through the work of
our Mediator, Jesus Christ. In brief, believers are living stones that
make up a spiritual temple in which, as a holy priesthood, they offer up spiritual
sacrifices.
Quoting the book of Exodus (19:5-6) Peter, in a phrase much
used in our liturgy, calls the Christians “a chosen race” (Is 43:20-21), “a
royal priesthood” (Is 61:6), “a holy nation” (Deut 28:9), “God’s own people”
(Deut 4:2, 7:6, 14:2; Is 43:21; Mal 3:17). It is a phrase originally directed
to the Israelites, but now extended to God’s people of all races, Jews and
Gentiles alike, who have chosen Jesus as their Lord.
And in words recalling a passage from the prophet Hosea
(2:23), we who were once called “no people” have become “God’s own
people”. Once we were beyond God’s mercy and now we have found mercy. In
Hosea, it is Israel who is God’s people; in Romans, it is the Gentiles to whom
Paul applies Hosea’s words; and in 1 Peter the words are applied to both.
The final two verses (11-12) belong to the third part of
this letter, where the position of the Christian in a hostile world is
discussed. We are reminded that privilege and choice bring also responsibility.
There is no room for complacency. We have to realise that in this world
we are strangers and exiles. The word ‘world’ can be understood in both its
scriptural senses. We do not belong to that world which is opposed to all
that God and Jesus and the gospel stand for. But even in the sense of the
material environment in which we live, we are not meant to be here
forever. It is not our permanent home. It is a place we pass through
to a much greater destination.
Hence we are not to indulge our baser instincts which can
undermine our spiritual destiny. We are not to be bothered by attacks
made on us by outsiders who may call us ‘troublemakers’. Given
Christians’ different life vision, this is only to be expected. Our Way
is a “sign of contradiction” for many.
We are to persevere in following the gospel because many
unbelievers, seeing how we behave, seeing our integrity, love, compassion and
sense of justice and peace, will ultimately come to praise not us, but the God
who enables us to live this way. Jesus had said the same in the Sermon on
the Mount:
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that
they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matt
5:16)
May they observe the good things that we do so that, in
time, they are led to change their ways and give glory to God “on the day of
visitation”. The Greek word translated ‘observe’ refers to a careful
watching over a period of time. The pagans’ final evaluation is not a ‘snap
judgment’. The “day of visitation” is perhaps the day of judgment and its
ensuing punishment, or possibly the day when God visits a person with
salvation. The believer’s good life may then influence the unbeliever to
repent and believe.
It is a very meaningful reading. It is full of lovely
images of Christ and of our relationship with him, and it concludes by
reminding us how we are to reveal the presence of Christ’s Spirit within us by
the way we relate to all those around us.
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Commentary on Mark
10:46-52
Read superficially, this is simply another pleasant story
about Jesus healing a blind man. However, as we shall see, there is much more
here than meets the eye, and there is a lot to discuss. Although Mark’s Gospel
is the one which gives most details when telling a story—leading people to
speak of his using the memories of an eyewitness (perhaps Peter)—there is quite
a lot more symbolism in his stories than at first seems apparent.
First of all, this story is strategically placed. It comes
at the end of a long portion of the Gospel beginning with the healing of a man
who is deaf (Mark 7:31-37). This section includes the high point at the middle
of the Gospel where the disciples recognise Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and also
the three predictions of his passion, death and resurrection and the
accompanying teachings. In between are several other episodes and teachings.
Through it all, we see the disciples stumbling along in various degrees of
misunderstanding as they accompany their Master.
Today’s story brings all this to an end, and in a way, can
be seen as a summing up of all that has gone before. Immediately after this,
the final phase of the Gospel begins with Jesus in Jerusalem for the last time.
We find Jesus and his disciples in Jericho, which lies just
north of Jerusalem. They are journeying south on their way from Galilee. We saw
yesterday how alarmed they were about Jesus’ determination to head for a place
so full of danger for him (and them). As Jesus was leaving the city,
accompanied by his disciples and a large crowd of people, there was “a blind
beggar” called Bar Timaeus (meaning, ‘son of Timaeus’) sitting beside the road.
Already we have a sentence full of symbolism here, some of which we will
discuss further on.
Jesus is not just leaving the city*, he is on the
first stage of the final and climactic period of his mission on earth. He is
heading for Jerusalem. Although he is surrounded by a large number of people,
most of them are with him only physically, but not in spirit, as we shall soon
see.
When the blind man hears all the commotion he naturally
wants to know what is going on and is told that Jesus of Nazareth is passing
by. Immediately on hearing this he calls out,
Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!
It is a form of what we now call the ‘Jesus Prayer’. This is
a prayer we need to make constantly—a prayer we can only make sincerely when we
are truly aware and accepting of our dependence on Jesus’ help and guidance,
and when we fully acknowledge the distance that exists between what we are and
what Jesus is calling us to be.
In making such a prayer, the blind man is opening himself up
to all that Jesus can and wants to give him. However, the surrounding crowd,
smug in their (physical) closeness to Jesus and contemptuous of an irritating
beggar, try to silence him. How often people have given up their approach to
Jesus because of discouragements they have met! How often have we, perhaps,
been a source of discouragement or scandal to people who were hesitatingly
looking for Jesus and the meaningful life he can open up for us?
This man, however, is not discouraged. The more he is
scolded by the crowd, the louder he shouts. Jesus has told us to ask, not once,
but many times. This the man does. Then Jesus stops…if the man had not called,
Jesus might not have stopped. He would simply have continued on his journey.
Jesus constantly passes through our lives. Every single day. How often have we
failed to recognise his presence? How often have we failed to call him? And
perhaps he has passed on and out of our day.
Jesus tells those around him:
Call him here.
Notice that Jesus does not call the man himself. He tells
others to call him. Again that is something that is the norm in our lives.
If we believe that Jesus has appeared to us in a vision and
directly called us, either we are ready for canonisation or, more likely, for a
care home! No, it is through others that we are constantly being called. In
fact, we might reflect today on the huge number of people who have directly or
indirectly brought Christ into our lives. It is because of them that we are
what we are now. Without them, we would not know Jesus or the Gospel or the
Church.
Notice, too, the fickleness of the crowd. Those who had just
been scolding the man are now urging him to approach Jesus.
Take heart; get up, he is calling you.
How many people need to hear those words! And how often they
never do! Yes, there is no need ever to be afraid of Jesus, our Good Shepherd.
And he is calling every one of us, in some way or other. But perhaps many have
never heard the call, because Jesus expected me to do the calling. But I was
too absorbed in myself to do so.
“Get up!” they tell the man. Yes, he is being told to rise,
and it is the same verb that describes the rising of Jesus from the dead. He is
not just being told to get on his feet, but to enter a whole new way of living.
He throws off his cloak, which presumably was all he was wearing, and comes to
Jesus. He comes to Jesus encumbered with absolutely nothing. It is also
reminiscent of the disciples leaving their boats, their nets and their family
to follow Jesus. It is reminiscent of the early Christians stripping themselves
of all their clothes, symbolic of their sinful past, as they go down into the
baptismal pool. When we approach Jesus, we need to divest ourselves of
everything, get rid of everything we tend to cling to (see the story of the
‘rich’ man in Mark 10:17-31).
Jesus now asks him:
What do you want me to do for you?
Isn’t this a wonderful thing to hear from Jesus? But he is
asking the very same question of us every day. We often tend to ask what Jesus
wants us to do for him, but he is also asking us what he can do for us. And
when he asks you that question today—and he will ask
today—what answer are you going to give him? What you say is going to reveal a
great deal about you and your priorities in life.
In a sense, of course, Jesus does not need to know the
answer to your question, but you do. And the answer comes from the asking. And
have you noticed any changes in the way you would answer the question over the
years? And what would today’s answer be? By the way, did we not hear Jesus
asking the same question before? Yes indeed. In yesterday’s Gospel when James
and John came asking for a favour, Jesus asked them,
What is it you want me to do for you?
Compare now the two answers. The disciples asked for a
privilege, for positions of status and authority and power, to be one up over
others. What did the blind man ask for?
My teacher, let me see again.
Of course, in our present context he is not just asking for
physical sight. He is looking for something much more important; he is looking
for in-sight, the ability to see into the meaning of life and its
direction and its ultimate values.
In answer to the question that Jesus is asking us, we could
hardly make a better response:
…let me see again.
When we truly see with our inner eye, it changes our whole
way of looking at the world, and our behaviour changes accordingly. We cannot ask
for anything more crucial in life. Perhaps we feel all along that we have been
able to see both literally and figuratively. But today we are asking to see
again, to have a deeper vision that goes much further into the ultimate meaning
of our lives.
Jesuit Father Anthony de Mello speaks of this in his
book Awareness. He defines ‘awareness’ as “being wide awake and
living with your eyes open”. No wonder Jesus responds generously to the man’s
request:
Go, your faith has made you well.
“Made well”, that is, he is restored to complete wholeness.
Only a person with perfect (in)sight (in the sense we have discussed) is truly
whole. Only such a person knows where to go and how to get there.
And what happens then? The beggar receives the sight he
asked for (“Ask, and you shall receive”) and what does he do? He does the only
thing that a person with true vision can do—he follows Jesus on the road, that
Road, that Way to Jerusalem and all that it means. He becomes unconditionally a
disciple.
Going back now to the beginning of the story we were told
that Bar Timaeus, “a blind beggar” was sitting by the road. This description is
one that fits every person who discovers Jesus. We are, without Jesus, blind;
we cannot see clearly although we may be very clever and highly educated. But,
if we cannot see what Jesus sees, we are sightless; we are blind.
And we are beggars. We can only truly come to Christ when we
realise that, whatever intellectual, social or material endowments we may have,
we are basically poor. That was the problem of the rich man who came to Jesus.
In his monetary wealth, he was not aware of his radical poverty. In our present
life, we have nothing that is really ours.
Third, the man was sitting beside the road, not on it. And
this indeed is the lot of everyone who sits beside the road, to be blind and a
beggar in need. The road, as we have said, in the Gospel story is a symbol of
the Way that is Christ. It is where there is Truth and Life. And so at the end
of the story, the man, having made his compact with Jesus, is now able to see,
is no longer a beggar, and is accompanying Jesus on the road that is his Way.
This story has meanings going far beyond a mere miracle
story. It is a beautiful summing up of how Jesus’ disciples learnt to see and
walk with him along the Way. It is a Gospel in miniature, a vignette of the
spiritually deprived person discovering where Truth and Life are and committing
himself or herself to it totally.
______________________________
*Luke mentions the same visit but describes Jesus entering
Jericho. Here he has his encounter with Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector (see
verses beginning with Luke 19:1).
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Thursday,
May 28, 2026
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Lord,
guide the course of world events and give your Church the joy and peace
of serving you in freedom.
You live and reign with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Mark 10: 46-52
As Jesus left Jericho with
his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus -- that is, the son of Timaeus -- a
blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road. When he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and cry out, 'Son of David, Jesus, have
pity on me.' And many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he
only shouted all the louder, 'Son of David, have pity on me.' Jesus stopped and said, 'Call him here.' So
they called the blind man over. 'Courage,' they said, 'get up; he is calling
you.' So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus. Then Jesus
spoke, 'What do you want me to do for you?' The blind man said to him, 'Rabbuni, let me see again.' Jesus said
to him, 'Go; your faith has saved you.' And at once his sight returned and he
followed him along the road.
Reflection
The Gospel today describes the cure of the blind man
Bartimaeus (Mk 10: 46-52) which closes the long teaching of Jesus about the
Cross. At the beginning of this teaching, there was the cure of an anonymous
blind man (Mk 8: 22-26). Both cures of blind persons are the symbol of what
happened between Jesus and the disciples.
•
Mark 10: 46-47: The shouting of the blind man Bartimaeus. Finally, after
travelling a long distance, Jesus and the disciples reached Jericho, the last
stop before going up toward Jerusalem. Bartimaeus, the blind man was sitting at
the side of the road. He could not take part in the procession which
accompanies Jesus. But he calls out, asking for the help of Jesus:
“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” Throughout
the centuries, through the practice of the monks of the desert, this invocation
of the poor Bartimaeus became what is usually called: “The prayer of Jesus.” The monks
repeated it orally, all the time, and from the mouth it went to the heart. The
person, after a short time, no longer prays, in the sense that the person
becomes prayer.
•
Mark 10: 48-51: Jesus listens to the cry of the blind man. The cry of the
poor man bothers people. Those who are in the procession try to stop the poor
man from shouting, but “he
shouted even louder!” And what does Jesus do? He listens to the call
of the poor man, he stops and said: Call him here! Those who wanted to keep him
from shouting, to stop the disturbing
shout of the poor man, now, at the request of Jesus, are obliged to bring the
poor man to Jesus. “Courage,
get up because Jesus is calling you.” Bartimaeus leaves everything
and directs himself to Jesus. He does not have too much. Only a mantle; what he
had to cover his body (cfr. Ex 22: 25-26). This was his security, the only
thing he possessed. Jesus asks: “What
do you want me to do for you?” It is not enough to shout. It is
necessary to know why we shout! “Rabbuni,
My Lord, let me see again!” Bartimaeus had called Jesus not with
thoughts completely just, because the title “Son of David” was not particularly
appropriate. Jesus himself had criticized this (Mk 12: 35-37). But Bartimaeus
had greater faith in Jesus than what he could express with his ideas about
Jesus. He does not express any demands as Peter did. He knows how to give his
life without imposing any conditions, and the miracle takes place.
•
Mark 10: 52: “Your faith has saved you.” Jesus tells him: “Go, your faith has saved you.” In
that same instant Bartimaeus began to see again and he followed Jesus along the
road. His cure is the result of his faith in Jesus. Once cured, he abandons everything,
follows Jesus along the road and goes up with him toward Calvary to Jerusalem.
Bartimaeus becomes a model disciple for all of us who want to “follow Jesus
along the road” in the direction of Jerusalem. In this decision of walking with
Jesus is found the source of courage and the seed of the victory on the Cross.
Because the cross is not fatal, nor an exigency from God. It is the consequence
of the commitment assumed with God, to serve
the brothers and sisters and to reject privileges.
•
Faith
is a force which transforms persons. The cure of the blind man
Bartimaeus clarifies a very important aspect of how faith in Jesus should be.
Peter had said to Jesus: “You are the Christ!” (Mk 8: 29). His doctrine was
right, exact, because Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. But when Jesus says
that the Messiah has to suffer, Peter reacts and does not accept. Peter had a
right doctrine, but his faith in Jesus was not so just. Bartimaeus, on the
contrary, had called Jesus with the title of “Son of David!” (Mk 10: 47. Jesus
was not too pleased with this title (Mk 12: 35-37). And this is why, even
invoking Jesus with a doctrine which is not correct, Bartimaeus had faith and
was cured! It was different from that of Peter (Mk 8: 32-33), he believed more
in Jesus than in the ideas that he had of Jesus. He was converted and followed
Jesus along the road toward Calvary (Mk 10: 52). The total understanding of the
following of Jesus is not obtained through a theoretical teaching, but with
practical commitment, walking with
him along the road of service and of gratuity, from Galilee to Jerusalem.
Anyone who insists in maintaining the idea of Peter, that is, a glorious
Messiah without the Cross, will understand nothing of Jesus and will never be
able to attain the attitude of a true disciple. Anyone who believes in Jesus
and “gives” himself (Mk 8: 35), accepts “to be the last one” (Mk 9: 35), to
“drink the cup and to carry the cross” Mc 10: 38), this person, like
Bartimaeus, even having a not too correct idea, will succeed to perceive and
“to follow Jesus along the road” (Mk 10: 52). In this certainty of walking with
Jesus is found the source of courage and the seed of the victory on the cross.
Personal Questions
•
An indiscreet question: “In my way of living
faith, am I like Peter or like Bartimaeus?
•
Today, in the Church, is the majority of the
people like Peter or like Bartimaeus?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh is good,
his faithful love is everlasting, his constancy from
age to age. (Ps 100: 5)
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