Daily Reflection Thursday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time

What is it about a name?

A dear pastor friend of ours can still remember the names of children he baptized over fifty years ago. He routinely greets by name folks at the door of the Christmas Eve Mass who have not darkened that door in a year. To be called by name. What an amazing gift of his priesthood -- a gift of hospitality, intimacy, mission, and evangelization.

In our Gospel passage today, Jesus cures the blindness of a person, a person with a name and a family history. Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus. This naming is rare in our Gospel narratives. More common: 'a rich young man;' 'the man born blind;' 'the man with the withered hand.' (This shout-out honor of being named by the Gospel writer Mark leads our imagination to ask what key role the now sighted Bartimaeus might have gone on to play in the life and witness of the early Church.)

Bartimaeus has used a name as well in his encounter with Jesus -- 'Son of David.' What an ennobling title for the Master. It echoes for me the name 'Daughter of Abraham' that Jesus uses in ennobling the woman with a hemorrhage cured by his healing touch. Bartimaeus' persistent calling out using this name catches Jesus' sacred attention. Bartimaeus casts aside his cloak and springs toward Jesus. In such a touching way, filled with the recognition of the dignity of the other, Jesus asks him, "What do you seek? What would you have me do for you?" Why ask, we wonder. It might seem obvious to us that Bartimaeus would want the cure: his sight restored. Of course he wants to see. But Jesus never presumes. He never uses a person as an object, a shill, to make a point or to show his miraculous power. Might Jesus have known other broken or raw parts of Bartimaeus that would need Jesus' healing touch more than a cure for his blindness? Perhaps that eventual healing marks part of his discipleship journey as well.

In Mark's Gospel, this is the last miracle healing we will hear. Jesus will travel now the Jericho Road leading back to Jerusalem. There he will ask himself and the Father, "What do you want me to do?-- for You, O my God, and for us. His answer will come in the laying down of his very life. 

What healing do we want Jesus to do for us today?  He knows our noble name, our history, what we are capable of and what we willfully refuse to do. Let's put aside our 'cloaks,' anything that would prevent us from springing to the side of Jesus. "Take courage; get up; he's standing at the door."