My Dear Parishioner,

A warm welcome to all those who are able to join us for our Eucharistic celebrations this weekend. It is going to be wonderful to see so many of you. Of course, we understand that there may be some of you who, for whatever reason, are unable to join us at the moment, but we look forward to the day when you are able to return.

As you know we have been saying the Rosary from 1 October, via Zoom and at home. This week we began having the Rosary devotion in OLGC Church. This will run until 30 October at 7pm every evening and Saturday’s after the Vigil Mass.

We then come to November and, as you know, this is the month of our dearly departed souls. As you know that we will have the Remembrance Mass as usual which is advertised in the Bulletin, but you may also like to ask for Mass to be offered for a deceased member of your family, relatives or friends. November Mass offering envelopes for this are now in the churches and you may take it with you and bring it when you come for the Masses.

You will have noticed that the office hours have changed, 8.30am to 2.30pm on weekdays. We are always contactable by email or phone, but the Parish Secretary will only be in the office during those hours. If you wish to come to the office for any reason, you will need to sign in with a QR code and if you are not fully vaccinated please meet the office staff at the office entrance at this stage.

I would like to thank the PPC members and others who spent their time and energy in organising the “Bread for the Needy” during lockdown. This will now be available after Masses at OLGC on the weekend. I am also grateful to the people who have found the time to clean up our churches and prepare for the Eucharistic celebrations, thank you all.

We will have a busy few months as we catch up with meetings, liturgical celebrations and social engagements, we look forward to seeing many of you during this time. Please remember to help one another if anyone have any difficulty with regard to scan the QR code or “check in card”. If any one doesn’t have a smart phone please help that person to add as a dependent person with you. Remember we are one body. Please stay safe and follow all the health advice and let us pray that we will continue to have the freedom we can only have when COVID is under control.

God Bless you all,

Fr Satheesh Antony.

One Monday, three priests, a Franciscan, a Dominican and a Jesuit were having a hard time on the golf course. The golfers in front of the priests were the slowest and worst they had ever seen. Golf balls were going everywhere. Against golfing etiquette, the group never asked the priests to ‘play through’. By the 18th hole the priests were furious. At the clubhouse, just as they were going over to blast the group, they were told that the men were blind.

The Franciscan, moved with remorse at how they had spoken about the group, said to the Dominican and the Jesuit, ‘I am going to say Mass every day that God may grant them a miracle and restore their sight’. The Dominican, equally filled with regret, told the Jesuit and the Franciscan that he was going to get the blind men an appointment with the best eye surgeon in town. The Jesuit, however, looked at the Franciscan and the Dominican and declared, ‘I can't see why they don't play at night!’

To have any type of disability in first century Palestine not only meant financial hardship, but social segregation. Because Jesus' contemporaries did not understand the causes of disability and illness they assumed it was, to some degree, a curse sent by God in punishment for sins. They also thought the curse could be caught. So the blind, the lame, the crippled, the leper and the bleeder were desperately poor and socially outcast. Incredibly in our day, with all our supposed sophistication, some Christians have made similar statements about God cursing gay people with AIDS. Given the way Jesus acts toward those he encounters with illness, we know that God never sends disease as a curse for sin.

Bartimeaus is, however, a desperate man and in the story he acts desperately, calling out until he is heard. And in one of the strangest questions in the Gospel, Jesus asks a blind man what it is he wants. Maybe Jesus wants Bartimaeus to name his deepest desire. Maybe Jesus knows that it is, often, the unseen hurt that is the most diseased and needs healing first. Whatever of his motives, Jesus' question gives the man dignity.

American dramatist, Michael Moynahan, has written a moving play entitled Bartimaeus which centres around that pivotal question, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’. The action of the parable, as we have it in the Gospel, freezes when Jesus puts the question.

As Bartimaeus considers his options, he hears the voices of those he might have to look at if he regains his sight. The poor remind him that, ‘once before you could see and what you saw disgusted you’. The hungry ask, ‘do you have the courage to experience and share my hunger?’. The elderly inquire whether he wants to see those ‘put away because we remind you of the frailty of life’. The captives challenge him to see those ‘unjustly bound and oppressed’. And finally the Self wants to know, ‘Are you willing to look inside yourself to see your beauty and ugliness, darkness and light?’. It's a gripping scene.

It reminds us all that sight, and the insight that can come from what we see, bestows on us the dignity of having options and the responsibility to do something about what we behold. We are in the position of making choices about what we look at. Not everything in the world needs to be seen. There is enough violence and abuse of human dignity in real life to discourage us from seeking out most fictionalised portrayals of it. We cannot, however, let ourselves off the hook in regard to seeing the world as it is and doing something about creating a better vision of humanity for everyone, everywhere.

Michael Moynahan's play finishes, like the Gospel story, with Bartimaeus requesting from Jesus the gift of sight. But in the play, in a powerful twist, as Bartimeaus follows Jesus on the path, he stops, turns and sees the human faces behind the challenging voices. He goes back, embraces them and together they walk the Christian path.

In this Eucharist, then, the same question is put by Jesus to us, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’. And if our answer is to have sight or insight, then let's also pray for the courage to shoulder the responsibility that comes with every gift. (Richard Leonard)