…and Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”

When was the last time someone asked you, “What do you want me to do for you?” And how often have you heard someone say, “Be careful what you ask for?” Are we sometimes afraid to ask for what we need?

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, certainly wasn’t afraid to ask for the one thing he needed most to make his life complete. “Let me see again,” Bartimaeus responds when Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you.”

In our journey of life, how often do we lose SIGHT of the important things in life; the things that really matter? Remember the words to Amazing Grace,  “I once was blind but now I see.”   When were we blind and how did we come to see again?

Bartimaeus doesn’t just ask to see; he asks to see AGAIN. So often in life we see clearly for a while and with the passage of time we fail to remember all the trials and tribulations we had to overcome to really, really see. And so we continue to ask, “Lord, that I may see again.” That I may see the poor, the blind, the hungry, the oppressed, the helpless, the uncared ones, and that I may be the one to give them what they need.

“Son of David, have mercy on me” so that I too may have mercy on the those whose greatest need is mercy.

I find this to be one of the heaviest Gospels in the Scriptures because once we ask for sight and it is granted there is no turning back. We must respond to the needs in our world. We must see humanity as our call to be human and to respond in human terms. We cannot see the hungry and not feed them. We cannot see the homeless and not give them shelter. We cannot. We must not.

Evangeline Salazar, OSB