The Sunday Gospel
The prayer of the blind man, Bartimaeus, is a model of prayer. It is full of reverence, simplicity, trust and perseverance. It is the basis of what is known as the Jesus Prayer. This has always been popular in the Orthodox tradition but forgotten in the West until recent times. The prayer of Bartimaeus is firstly an act of faith in Jesus and then a plea for mercy. The usual formula is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” Some people prefer to shorten the prayer…perhaps, “Jesus, mercy”…“Jesus Lord”… “Jesus Saviour”…or “Jesus Friend”.
Begin by repeating the words with your lips. Gradually move from your lips to the rhythm of your breathing. This is not a mechanical, meaningless incantation as if it were a magical formula. The prayer is not so much about the words as about the person of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
The Jesus Prayer aims at bringing us to stand in God’s presence with no other thought but the miracle of our standing there and God”
Nor is the repetition like the hypnotic trance of a transcendental meditation mantra which induces a mental emptiness. Blind Bartimaeus prayed to Jesus whom he could not see. Christian prayer develops an alertness, a constant loving attention to the unseen presence of the Lord Jesus.
Great teachers of the spiritual life testify to the value of the Jesus Prayer in helping a person to advance from prayer as a series of isolated exercises to prayer as a constant state of loving attentiveness to the risen Lord Jesus within us.
Miracle
“The Jesus Prayer aims at bringing us to stand in God’s presence with no other thought but the miracle of our standing there and God with us, because in the use of the Jesus Prayer there is nothing and no one except God and us” (Archbishop Anthony Bloom).
Bartimaeus was blind but he prayed, he persevered and he saw. And in that new light he cast off the cloak of the old way and walked the road of life in union with Jesus Christ.
PS: If the law about blasphemy had been taken seriously, half the country would be in jail for the blasphemous use of the sacred name of Jesus!
Gospel Reflections and Prayers by Fr Silvester O’Flynn is published by Columba Books.