I will Bring them Back

(30th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Heb. 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52)

We have no trouble connecting La Salette with images used in today’s responsorial Psalm: “Although they go forth weeping, carrying the seed to be sown, they shall come back rejoicing, carrying their sheaves”—tears (Mary’s and her people’s) over blighted crops, followed by a promise of abundant harvests.

The context of the Psalm, as also of the first reading, is a vision of God’s people returning from exile. This is God’s doing. No one is excluded.

The context of La Salette is similar. Christians were living in exile from their own faith. In hard times they had only themselves to count on, and they had proven inadequate to the task. Through the Beautiful Lady, God was offering to bring them back.

The people of Israel were in exile some seventy years. They had ample time to reflect seriously on their apostasy and that of their ancestors. When they were finally allowed to return to their homeland, they were resolved to be faithful to God and worship him alone. They were ready to submit.

At La Salette, Mary says, “I warned you last year with the potatoes. You paid no heed.” Like Israel of old, her people failed to understand what was coming. They, too, were in danger of being abandoned. Jesus had been, in the words of the Letter to the Hebrews, “able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,” but now the time had come when his Mother was “obliged to plead with him constantly.”

She spoke of submission, not of a slavish sort, but born of trust. Take the Blind Bartimaeus, for example. He knows he has no special claim on Jesus’ attention; he says nothing to those who try to silence him, but continues to cry, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Standing before Jesus, he calls him Master.

All of this bespeaks a rightly submissive spirit. He is powerless to change his situation, but believes that Jesus can lead him out of darkness into light. 

Our Lady reminds us that we can be brought back from whatever darkness or slavery or exile we may be experiencing. What is required on our part is to recognize our need, and to turn to the Lord with unwavering hope. Then our tongue will be filled with rejoicing.