Those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing

Tom Bartolomeo
30th Sunday Ordinary B 2012
Jeremiah 31: 7-9; Psalm 126;
Hebrews 5: 1-6; Mark 10: 46-52
Reproduced with Permission

We are not there yet, "those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing" as we heard in Psalm 126. Now some 2,600 years later we, too, are suffering the same chastisements as the people of Israel in our dysfunctional society and government in disarray. Then . . . the Lord had commissioned his prophet Jeremiah to forewarn his countrymen, "Proclaim . . . these words [in] Judah, and the streets of Jerusalem . . . . Obey my voice."

Yet [as God told Jeremiah] they did not obey or incline their ear but every one walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. . . . . Therefore . . . I am bringing evil upon them which they cannot escape; though they cry to me, I will not listen to them. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they cannot save them in the time of their trouble. For your gods have become as many as your cities . . . and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to shame, altars to burn incense to Baal. [Baal, was a god of fertility and sexual perversions.]

Soon after this warning the Babylonian Empire overran Israel capturing and deporting the people of Israel to Babylon where they lived in drudgery for 70 years until Darius, the king of Assyria, overthrew Babylon and released the remains of the nation of Israel, a remnant of the old and infirm who returned to Israel to rebuild their broken lives and nation. It wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last that God's chosen people would suffer for their crimes against God and nature.

It would take a concerted and bold effort for any of God's chosen people to right their wrongs in the time of Christ under the harsh rule of the Roman Empire such as Bartimaeuas exemplified in today's gospel.

'Jesus, son of David', he pleaded, 'have pity on me.' And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out the more.

Bartimaeus would not be dissuaded. He knew who Jesus was. How else would the gospel writer know his name unless "his faith had saved him" and he become a Christian and "followed him on the way." He persisted and finally won God's mercy. When will we "call him" and win God's mercy from our evil ways?

If you haven't noticed we are beginning to go through tough times. Our presidential campaign and candidates vying for the Presidency of our nation tell us so every day, one blaming or accusing the other of wrongdoing. Actually, the cause of all our troubles is not our economy really but our culture. Our suffering economy is one of many symptoms of our suffering popular culture.

I know a little something about this, the politics of supporting life or wrongdoing. Long before I entered a seminary and was ordained a priest I was a candidate for the New York Senate and lost - although by a small margin, 1,000 votes or so out of more than 100,000 votes cast. Early in my campaign I was invited to address a large gathering of the National Organization of Women, and began my talk stating that "they would agree with everything I had to say except one thing", my opposition to abortion.

I really didn't plan that, but that's how it worked out. Would I be a Catholic priest today, had I won the race? Probably not, even though I wasn't thinking about the priesthood then. But I do know politics. It often comes down to winning - at what cost? Sometimes changes practicing Catholics into non-practicing Catholics. More than one third of the members of Congress, you should know, are Catholic.

The more important issue for Catholics in this election are not our political religious rights, but our practice of religion whether protected or persecuted. It would not be the controversy it is - if contraception, abortion, sterilization and same sex marriages were not favored by so many including Catholics. Our personal campaigns for heaven will not be decided by our political affiliations. When I ran for public office as a Democrat I held to my Catholic faith and Church teachings, and have never supported or voted for a candidate including a Presidential candidate who supported or advocated contraception, abortion or other indisputably and intrinsically evil government mandates or laws such as we are facing today.

Our tough times today, fewer jobs, less income and higher costs for everything, may only be the beginning of our chastisement by a loving God, who, as Scripture teaches, "chastises" those whom he loves, Jeremiah 31,18. The outcome of our national elections does not decide our salvation. Our opposition to intrinsic evil does, particularly upholding traditional marriage, the dignity of human conception and the protection of the life of the unborn child. Evil of such magnitude trumps and far outweighs any and all other considerations. We can not be so blind to the truth and not "cry out and say . . . with courage" as did Bartimaeus:

Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me . . . I want to see.

Summary: The outcome of our national elections does not decide our salvation. Our opposition to intrinsic evil does, particularly upholding traditional marriage, the dignity of human conception and the protection of the life of the unborn child. Evil of such magnitude trumps and far outweighs any and all other considerations. We can not be so blind to the truth and not "cry out and say . . . with courage" as did Bartimaeus:

Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me . . . I want to see.

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