“I invite you to bring before the Heart of Christ your most painful and fragile parts, those places in your life where you feel stuck and blocked.” With this request, Leo XIV opened his catechesis at the general audience, devoted to “an essential aspect of the life of Jesus”, namely his healings. “Let us trustfully ask the Lord to listen to our cry, and to heal us!”, is Pope’s appeal, whose catechesis for the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square this morning centred on the figure of blind Bartimaeus, whose story shows us that
“we must never give up hope, even when we feel lost.”
Jesus meets Bartimaeus, “a blind man and a beggar”, in Jerico, a city below sea level. “Jesus, with his death, went to take back that Adam who fell to the bottom and who represents each one of us”, explained Leo XIV: “Bartimaeus fails to live up to what he is called to be. Unlike the great movement of people who walk behind Jesus, Bartimaeus is still.” “What can we do when we find ourselves in a situation that seems to have no way out?”, asked the Pontiff, adding that Bartimaeus “teaches us to appeal to the resources we have within us and which form a part of us. He is a beggar, he knows how to ask, indeed, he can shout! If you truly want something, you do everything in order to be able to reach it, even when others reproach you, humiliate you and tell you to let it be. If you really desire it, you keep on shouting!” “The cry of Bartimaeus, in the Gospel of Mark – ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!’ (v. 47) – has become a very well-known prayer in the Eastern tradition, which we too can use – the Pope goes on to propose – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have pity on me, a sinner.”
“Many times, it is precisely our apparent securities that stand in our way – what we have put on to defend ourselves and which instead prevent us from walking”,
the analysis of Pope Leo: “To go to Jesus and let himself be healed, Bartimaeus must show himself to Him in all his vulnerability”, he explained: “This is the fundamental step in any journey of healing.” “Bartimaeus is blind, but paradoxically he sees better than the others, and he recognizes who Jesus is!” Before his cry, Jesus stops and reactives his life: “He spurs him to get up again, He trusts in his ability to walk.” “That man can get up on his feet again, he can rise from the throes of death. But in order to do this, he must perform a very meaningful gesture: he must throw away his cloak”, the Holy Father remarked: “For a beggar, the cloak is everything: it is his safety, it is his house, it is the defence that protects him. Even the law protected the beggar’s cloak, and imposed that it be returned in the evening if taken as a pledge.”
“It is not given that we want to be healed from our ailments; at times we prefer to stay still so as not to take responsibility”,
denounced the Pontiff. In the Gospel account, Bartimaeus “does not want only to see again; he wants to regain his dignity!” “To look up, we must raise our heads”, Leo XIV’s counsel: “At times people are stuck because life has humiliated them, and they just want to find their worth again.” “What saves Bartimaeus, and each one of us, is faith”, the Pope assured: “Jesus heals us so that we can become free. He does not invite Bartimaeus to follow him, but tells him to go, to set out on his way. However, Mark concludes the story by saying that Bartimaeus began to follow Jesus: he freely chose to follow him, He who is the Way!”.
“Let us trustfully bring our ailments before Jesus, and also those of our loved ones; let us bring the pain of those who feel lost and without a way out.”
The Pope concluded his catechesis with the following appeal: “Let us cry out for them too, and we will be certain that the Lord will hear us and stop.” At the end of the audience, the Pope offered his prayers and closeness to the victims of the tragedy in Graz.
