02/22/2026
“O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake: Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.”
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In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Quinquagesima always feels like standing at the doorway of Lent.
The Church knows what is coming — fasting, repentance, the slow and honest work of the heart. But before she speaks to us about discipline, she asks something deeper:
Do you love?
Saint Paul says it plainly:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels… and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass.”
And then he says something even more unsettling:
“If I have all faith… and have not charity, I am nothing.”
Nothing.
We can be busy in the Church. We can be correct. We can be disciplined. We can be knowledgeable. But without love, it becomes noise.
And while Paul writes those words, Christ is walking toward Jerusalem.
He tells His disciples what awaits Him — betrayal, suffering, death, and resurrection. And the Gospel says, almost painfully, “They understood none of these things.”
They are close to Him. But they do not yet understand the shape of His love.
And then we meet the blind man — Bartimaeus.
He is sitting by the roadside. He cannot see. He has nothing to offer but a cry:
“Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.”
They try to silence him. He cries out all the more.
And Christ stops.
On His way to the Cross — He stops for mercy.
He heals him. And the Gospel tells us that Bartimaeus follows Him.
Sight restored.
Feet moving.
Following toward Jerusalem.
That name matters to us. Bartimaeus.
It is not just a figure in the Gospel. It is the religious name our Bishop-Elect has taken. And that is not a small thing.
To take the name Bartimaeus is to take the name of a man who cried for mercy — and received sight. A man who did not stay by the roadside once he was healed, but followed Christ on the road that led to the Cross.
There is something beautiful and sobering about that.
And that cry of Bartimaeus is not just a moment in Scripture. It became the root of the prayer the Church has carried for centuries.
The Church took his words — “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” — and joined them to another cry from this same chapter of Luke: the publican who prayed, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
And from those two cries came the prayer we know so well:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Blindness and repentance woven together.
Need and humility in one breath.
That is the prayer of Lent.
Saint Peter Mogila reminds us that everything in the Christian life hangs on love. He writes:
“We are bound to love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves… Without this love, no work, though it seem great before men, is acceptable before God.”
Without love, even religious effort is empty.
And he teaches that Christ came:
“not of necessity, but of His own will and love for mankind.”
Love moved Him toward Jerusalem.
Love allowed Him to endure betrayal.
Love carried Him to the Cross.
Love opened Paradise again.
Bartimaeus did not understand the theology of the Passion. He simply knew he needed mercy. And that cry restored his sight.
Maybe that is where we begin as Lent approaches.
Not with performance.
Not with spiritual ambition.
But with a cry.
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
And when He restores our sight — even slowly — we follow.
Toward Jerusalem.
Toward the Cross.
Toward love that does not fail.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Photo by © ANVIL + EMBER ICONOGRAPHY
