A Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Jeremiah 31:7-9 Hebrews 5:1-6 Mark 10:46-52
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said that while we must live life forward, we only understand it backward. We see more in reflection, even from a great distance—perhaps, especially from a great distance—than we did when we were in the moment, when we were eagerly rushing toward whatever life had placed before us.
I recalled his insight not so long ago when a man I did not know made an appointment for a general confession. You may not be familiar with the term, given that the practice has greatly declined. Instead of confessing what you are aware of since your last confession, you survey your entire life, much like the “moral inventory” that groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous ask their members to do.
The practice is particularly useful at pivotal times in life, when one time of life is ending and another is beginning. This man had recently lost his wife of many decades. A man in a similar situation once said to me, “Father, I was with her for so long, I don’t know how to be me without her.” Perhaps that was what this man was about: learning how to live at the close of his life.
Obviously, what he confessed is lost to the silence of the confessional, buried in the depths of the savior’s heart. We spoke for more than an hour, not that this said anything about the life he has lived. It does not say that he had more sins to recount. Better, it says everything about who he has become. We both found great comfort in looking back.
During that confession, I realized three things. You might label them thesis, antithesis and synthesis. First, many years may pass before we see the great wrongs we do. Evidently, we need that time for passions and prejudices to die down. Then we can more readily see how our actions and attitudes affected others. Given the grace of time, so much of the wrong that we have done seems so evident, so easily perceived. But it was not so at the time.
Passions and prejudices blind us in another way. They also keep us from seeing our essential goodness. This became clear as this man was explaining the course of his life and the decisions he had made because he knew that love of family required them. He was not celebrating his own worth; he was simply explaining what he had felt compelled to do. But another man, one not as essentially good, might not have done the same.
And that brings us to the synthesis. We do not see most of life, and we know very little about ourselves. We say that life is a mystery. Good enough. But we should add that it is a mystery lived by mysteries. We think we know who we are, but that is mere conjecture. Only time, long stretches of it, makes clear who we really are. Returned from exile, the Israelites understood themselves more fully than before.
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me,” Bartimaeus repeatedly cries out (Mk 10:47)
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see” (Mk 10:51).
Do not overlook the depth of Bartimaeus’ cry. “Master, I want to see!” Not everyone does. Indeed, many do not. And many do little by way of attempting to see.
A simple mechanism is at play in confession. The same is true of psychological therapy and artistic expression. The mere act of putting your story into words promotes clarity and understanding. Of course, we confess our sins because the Lord told us to do so, but even on the most human levels, doing so allows us to see life, and ourselves, more clearly than we did.
Think again about confession. “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you” (Mk 10:49). Another can help you see. We do more wrong than we know. We are better than we think. We know so little about ourselves. Life is lived forward, but it is understood backward.
