A reading of the holy gospel, the good news according to Saint Mark. As Jesus was leaving Jericho, that's down in the valley near the Dead Sea, with his disciples and also a sizable crowd of people, there was a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, sitting by the roadside. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, Bartimaeus began to call out, Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. Many people were scolding the man to keep quiet, but he shouted out all the louder, son of David, have pity on me. Then Jesus stopped and said, call the man over.
So they called the blind man over, telling telling him as they did so, you have nothing whatsoever to fear. Get up. He is calling you. Bartimaeus threw aside his cloak, jumped up, and came to Jesus. Jesus asked him, what do you want me to do for you?
Raboni, the blind man said, I want to see. Jesus replied, be on your way. Your faith has healed you. Immediately, Bartimaeus received his sight and started to follow Jesus up the road. And this is the gospel of the lord.
Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. I this always brings a smile to my lips when I read this. I'm going to want to say a few words about Saint Philip Neri, but I can't resist this. Here's a man who went all through the this preparation.
He's sitting beside the road. He hears that Jesus coming and shouting. And they said, look, keep quiet. Shut up. Don't disturb him.
Be be respectful. And the man shouted out all the louder that he Jesus. And then when he comes over, the great master asked him, what do you want me to do for you? What a silly question. Ridiculous, isn't it?
That's what the way it was. Jesus asked him, what do you want me to do for you? And the man said, I want to see. And Jesus said, your faith has healed you. Notice, I don't.
He said, your faith has healed you. That's what Jesus said. But notice how the man went to Jesus. Notice how he used every means in his power. And notice the one thing he wanted was to see.
He was single-minded in seeking Jesus. Now that fits in, at least we can suppose it fits in, at least we can use this as a liaison, to Saint Philip Nary. This is a very pleasant saint. But like every saint, he had his hardships. To be a saint is not easy.
We think of a saint with all their good ideas, all their commitments, all the wonderful things that surround him, and all kinds of wonderful things surrounded Saint Philip Neri. We think that everybody's bowing to them saying, oh, yes, this is a great idea. Why didn't we think of it? Let's get going. It's never that way.
Never. Never. Never. One of the greatest disciples of Saint Philip Neri in the English speaking word is John Henry Cardinal Newman, nineteenth century, died in about 1890. Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman joined the oratorians when he became a Catholic in Rome.
And he came back and founded the first oratory in an English speaking world in Birmingham. Now, Cardinal Newman, at the end of a long life, said this, not a sing and these are almost his words. Not a single thing that I tried to do for the lord has succeeded. And practically everything he did, he did at the command of a religious superior or or or a superior of some sort. Practically everything.
That's what Newman at the end of a long life he said, everything I tried to do flopped. He didn't put it that way, that's how I say it. And it did. Just think of the University of Dublin, the Irish University. Can you also think of bringing an Englishman over to Ireland to tell the Irish how to run a university?
They must have lost their common sense. But these things happened, you see. So let's come back. You know, we think of the sixteenth century as a as a century, you know, of great and it was a great a great a century of great convulsion all up in Northern New York. The Scandinavian countries, England going by the board, Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and the rest of them in Switzerland, everything boiling.
Well, just remember, that's the century of Saint Philip Neri, it's a it's a it's a century of Ignatius Loyola, it's the century of the Council of Trent, it's the century of Saint Charles Barra Mayo, it's the century of Saint Francis de Sales, it's just and others, I could give you any number. The church didn't come to a halt because Luther shouted off his mouth up there in Germany. The Catholic church didn't stop because Henry the eighth made himself head of it in England. No, it didn't. So here, while all of Northern Europe is a flame, and it was pretty much, let's not minimize it.
Here, down here in Florence, Saint Philip was born in 1515. He died in 1595, so he stretches that whole century. He was born in Florence, and here's a here's a it's a fascinating thing the way you put all this together, you know. Here's this man born in Florence, who is his great champion? Savonarola, the great Dominican who will be canonized one day, in my humble estimation.
Of course, he, for trying to reform Florence, was burned. And and if you've been to Florence, you've seen the plaque where they burned Savonarola. But anyway, Savonarola was St. Philip's, a great champion when he was a kid. So he winds up in Rome, where he didn't want to become a priest.
So for eighteen years he conducted his own sort of religious revival. And here's the form it took. He would gather young men around him. They would go out for an afternoon. They would visit the catacombs.
Notice the catacombs. Sixteenth century is going back to the catacombs of the days of persecution of the church. And then they would have a picnic and then they would have some music. Then a few men joined him. See how these things happen?
And they formed a little community. No vows or anything of that sort. His, his spiritual director, notice again, obedience, he didn't think he was running his own show. He had a spiritual director. And the spiritual director said, look, you'll do much more work if you become a priest.
He became a priest, got himself ordained. Other few other priests joined him. And then in the afternoon, in this their little rectory where they were living together, they had they had readings of scripture, then they would sing hymns. And in some instances, the hymns were composed for the purpose by no less a person in one instance, at least in Palestrina. Remember we get the word oratorio from these afternoon soirees of Saint Philip Neri.
Now what was the reaction of official Rome to this? Throw them out. That was the reaction of official Rome. So until his dying day Philip Neri had a had a rough road. He wasn't accepted by by the papacy.
They thought he was going in that he was, sort of going along with the Reformation in the North. Within a few years of his death, he was canonized. You know, the light what I want to bring home to me, myself, and to you, these are our friends. And here I speak in Garrett Park with Cardinal Newman in the end of the nineteenth century, going back to Saint Philip in the sixteenth, who took his his companions down into the catacombs before they had a picnic and sang songs of praise to the Lord, oratorio. See how united we are.
We're one with them. And every all of these people, their lives were lives of struggle. You see, when we talk about the peace of the lord, what are we talking about? The older I get, the more scared I get. Because all of these people, if we have if we have any reason to think anybody had peace, they had peace.
But what kind of peace? Remember Christ said, the peace I give you is not of this world. Christ said that. Christ said that. My peace I give you.
Not as the world gives you, it's my peace. And look where his peace put him on the cross. Where does the peace of Christ put us? Carrying the cross. You can't escape it, folks.
You cannot. But there's no reason here to to pull back. There's everything here to fire us with courage, with perseverance. Our blessed lord never asked us to love the cross. All he asked us to do was to carry it with him.
And that's what the saints show us how to do. In the name of the father, of the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.