Imagine being on a commuter train in the rush hour. It snakes its way out of the city as night is falling. In the great tower blocks that flank the line the lights are going on. Each bright window represents a family; someone is saying, “What do you want for your tea?†Someone is saying, “Put the TV on, I want to watch the news.†Someone is saying, “You’ll never guess what happened at school this morning.†Maybe the same conversations are going on, give or take a few words, in many of the apartments as the rain flashes by: at the end of the working day, perhaps one human family is very like another.
Of one thing you can be sure: that each of those families, and each individual in those families, is known and loved by God. For you and me on the train, well, the sheer number of people defeats us. But God is not like us. God longs for each individual, each family, to turn to the one who created them and saved them – to belong to the people God has formed to bring them home to heaven. The train gathers speed and leaves them all behind, forgotten. God, however, does not forget. God loves to give the gift of faith. Today in St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus does not force the gift of sight on blind Bartimaeus. He responds to a call: “Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.†He asks, “What do you want me to do for you?†He answers an appeal. Those families in the tower blocks do not know how to call out, how to ask for the gift of faith. You and I can do it for them, as the train powers on through the dark.
Believing Christians are a small item today in a large population, and believing Catholics even more so. In our first reading Jeremiah talks today about a “remnant.†That’s what we are. But Jeremiah also says, “The Lord has saved his people…See, I will bring them back…and gather them from the far ends of earth.†God has a plan, even for the multicultural millions of our major cities. Your job, and mine, is to pray constatnly for the people among whom we live, that God will give them the gift of faith and bring them into safe haven of Christ’s Church. There is no limit to what the Holy Spirit can do: conversion is the Spirit’s stock-in-trade. But somewhere, there has to be someone crying out, “Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.†Let us storm heaven for our friends and neighbors.