Christ calls everyone, Pope tells audience
June 11, 2025
» Continue to this story on Vatican Press Office
CWN Editor's Note: At his weekly public audience for June 11, Pope Leo XIV spoke on Christ’s encounter with Bartimaeus, the blind beggar whose sight He restored.
The Pope encouraged the faithful to learn from Bartimaeus, who persisted in calling upon Jesus, asking for help. “I invite you to bring before the Heart of Christ your most painful and fragile parts, those places in your life where you feel stuck and blocked,” the Pope said.
When Jesus called to him, Pope Leo continued, Bartimaeus rushed to respond, tossing off his cloak. “For a beggar, the cloak is everything: it is his safety, it is his house, it is the defense that protects him,” the Pope remarked. He added that for all us, “many times, it is precisely our apparent securities that stand in our way.”
Next, Jesus asked the blind man what he wanted. Pope Leo explained that this step was and is necessary, because “it is not given that we want to be healed from our ailments; at times we prefer to stay still so as not to take responsibility.”
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