Learnings from the shepherds

Lessons from ‘home’

Shortly after I returned from the recent pilgrimage to Europe, some of the people in this parish asked me to recount some of the details of the tour.  As with other such experiences I’ve had the privilege to live in the past couple of years, each pilgrimage takes a bit of time to digest once we’ve returned home.  I can tell you that at the very beginning of the tour, when we had finally arrived in Lisbon, we met our first tour guide, whose family name was Lopes.  Imagine my surprise!  You see, my mother’s maiden name is Lopes, and her family comes from Madeira which is one of the Portuguese islands.  When I explained this connection, our tour guide replied, Welcome home!  What a warm greeting; I felt instantly as though I truly was connected to a part of our family history about which I had (until now) only heard stories.

Jeronimos monastery, Lisbon

We had a whirlwind tour of Lisbon, but I’m sure that most of us were still asleep, due to jetlag.  I suppose that means that I’ll have to return someday in order to visit Lisbon properly.  Our visit to that city seemed to be over before it had begun, and we were then whisked away to Fatima.  In that place too I found myself thinking that I was at last connecting with a part of our family history, for the church of my early childhood, in Georgetown, Guyana, was Our Lady of Fatima.

Fatima, Portugal is famous the world over because three shepherd children were blessed to receive a series of visions of Our Lady.  I had heard the story of these three children long ago, but visiting Fatima rekindled my understanding and appreciation for their faith, and the lasting legacy that has been left for us in that place.  Francisco and Jacinta Marto were brother and sister, eight and seven years old respectively when the Marian apparitions began in May 1917.  Their cousin Lucia was ten at the time.  Theirs is not the first that I’ve heard of children being granted such divine favor, but Francisco and Jacinta are among the youngest to be Beatified.  Their cousin was present in Fatima in 2000 when they were declared Blessed by His Holiness, John Paul II, and I’m willing to bet that it won’t be long before her cause for Canonization will be introduced.

Lucia in the centre with her cousins

These three children were ordinary kids.  They laughed and played together with other friends.  They and their families were hard-working, honest people.  There were many other brothers and sisters too, and their living accommodations, though adequate were by no means luxurious.  As I toured these locales, I couldn’t help wondering about the fact that God so often chooses the children among us or the ones that society would rather ignore (the poor, the marginalized and the needy) to show us the great gift of his love and his mercy.

The gospel we have listened to today (tonight) is another example of this very truth.  Bartimaeus was a blind beggar, cast aside by society.  He was sitting by the roadside when Jesus and his disciples passed by.  They could easily have kept moving; after all, they were on their way out of Jericho at the time, headed for other places, but Jesus chose Bartimaeus, ignored by the society of his day, to teach us a very valuable lesson.  The conversation that took place that day was simple enough: Jesus, having heard his cry for help, asked him, what do you want me to do for you, and Bartimaeus stated his case: My teacher, let me see again.  Had Bartimaeus been a man of means, he may have tried to use reason or logic to argue his case, but he was a nobody so he was probably used to being ignored by passers-by.  This brief dialogue shows us though that he must have heard about Jesus and perhaps about other miracles he had performed.  Somehow, he must have come to believe that Jesus could help him, and so he called out for help.

Long after her cousins had completed their earthly journeys, Lucia recounted the story of their simple faith.  She wrote about Jacinta’s firm belief that she was to accept suffering in reparation for sinners, and about Francesco’s suffering as well, which he accepted because he too believed that the Lady who had appeared to them would accompany him to heaven.  Lucia herself lived within the walls of a cloistered convent until her death in 2005.  She never held any position of authority within her congregation.  She simply lived her life, doing penance for the sake of those who would benefit from its merits.

No one knows how many times she cried out in prayer to Jesus, our High Priest, the one who intercedes for us, but like her, we too come to pray in places such as this.  Many of us have been richly blessed in so many ways, but when all is said and done, we are all equal before God.  Success in life is only inadequately measured by position.  Rather, the true measure of success, the measure by which we will be remembered, is the extent to which we have loved, and often the most valuable lessons about love are taught by the ones in our midst who are the innocent, the less fortunate, the people who sit on the side of the road and call for help.  The trick to learning the lessons begins with an admission that we are more often the ones who sit in the dust than we are the ones who pass by.  We are the ones who must find the courage to call out for help, and we are the ones who must come to believe that Jesus can indeed restore us to wholeness … but then again, sometimes you have to travel long distances along the dusty roads of life in order to learn such lessons.