Love God. Live the Eucharist.

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Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 28, 2018, by Fr. Kevin Anderson

We have a number of young people dressed up for TRUNK OR TREAT. I invite them to come up around the altar. [Identify various costumes: scary costumes, heroes, characters]

 

It is fun to pretend to be something else or someone else. Some of your costumes cover up your entire face (making your vision tough) and some costumes don’t cover your face and you can see clearly. [Identify which costumes make vision difficult].

 

In the gospel, there was a story of man named Bartimaeus. He was blind. We don’t know if he was blind from birth, or that something happened to cause him to be blind. Unfortunately, blindness was common at the time of Jesus mostly transmitter by flies and poor hygiene. We do not how he became blind but we know that he wanted to see.

 

There are so many times when we are blind to how we act. You know, when we don’t realize how mean we can be to someone [Elicit examples from kids. E.g. when we don’t play with someone at school, or we talk during class]. Or when we don’t realize how mad our parents get when we don’t do something. [Elicit examples of when parents get mad at us. For example, pick up your toys, go to bed on time, don’t watch that program]. Your parents aren’t trying to be mean to you, they want good things for you . . . they want you to see clearly of how you could improve.

 

There are other times when we can’t see God clearly. Back to the story of the gospel, the blind man, Bartimeous, can understand that Jesus is God. He calls him, “Son of David.” Do you know who David was? [Elicit responses that David was a King who ruled 700 years before Jesus was born. Jesus was a relative and was born in the city of David, Bethlehem.]

 

Bartimaeus saw Jesus clearly after Jesus healed him and what did he do? [Elicit to follow him.]

How can we follow Jesus [Elicit answers]?

 

We don’t know exactly what God wants of us, but usually we can better follow Jesus by asking. Try this tonight, instead of telling God what you want from God, pray, “God what do you want of me.”

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