“Prison Awareness Sunday”

READINGS:   Jeremiah 31: 7-9   /   Psalm 126: 1-2.2-3.4-5.6   /   Hebrews 5: 1-6   /   MARK 10: 46-52

HIS WORD… CALL HIM… WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO FOR YOU? …GO YOUR WAY; YOUR FAITH HAS SAVED YOU…

my words… In the Philippines, the last Sunday of October is “Prison Awareness Sunday”; a reminder for all Filipino Christians to pray and help our brothers and sisters behind bars. Some of them if not the majority are victims of injustices and slow judiciary procedures. May they find true liberation in Christ by our touch of love and care and concern for them…

Nature dictates the law of compensation:that any lack of one sense, the other senses compensate. This must be the case of the blind Bartimaeus in the gospel of today. He was blind and his knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of David must be coming from his very sharp sense of hearing. And so he took the opportunity as Jesus passed by to shout what he knew of Him with the ardent hope to see… And Jesus gave him what he wanted because of the manifestation of his great faith.

Brothers and Sisters, let us thank the Lord for giving us clear eyes; let us also thank modern science and technology through our optometrists and ophthalmologists for helping us treat and correct our impaired visions and sights. But let us rather be aware of our spiritual and moral blindness especially those that impaired us from seeing the needs of our least brothers and sisters. Let us be aware of the cataracts of our pride, arrogance, jealousies, conceits, self-centeredness, selfishness, and meanness. They become our hindrances in seeing Christ through and in our needy brethren. We need to clear, treat, and heal these inward types of blindness not through our optometrists and ophthalmologists but through the sacraments of the Church, especially the healing sacrament of Holy Confessions. Let us be healed by Jesus and thereby be able to open our eyes of faith to clearly see Jesus in our lives and in the lives and situations of our needy brothers and sisters.

Today is “Prison Awareness Sunday”. Let us now open our eyes and see Jesus in our brothers and sisters behind bars. Let us also bring Jesus to them so that they too may open their eyes of faith believing in Jesus as the true source of true freedom and liberation in their present situations. Let us also bring the healing touch of Jesus to them by patting them and showing our gestures of support and empathy so that they too may see Jesus in us. Let us be bearers of Christ’s light to others so that all of us can see Jesus clearly in the eyes of our faith.

MAY GOD OPEN OUR EYES TO SEE THE NEEDS OF OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN PRISON CELLS… (By Fr. Julius C. Lupot)