Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church

Ordinary Time - Week 23 - Year b

Listening to God

(From Conversation with God, Fernandez Carvajal)

The liturgy of this Sunday's Mass is a call to hope and absolute confidence in the Lord. In a moment of darkness the prophet Isaiah lifts up his voice to comfort the Chosen People who live in exile. He announces the happy return to their homeland: "Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong fear not! Here is your God; He comes with vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save you." And the prophet predicts wonders which will have their complete fulfilment with the coming of the Messiah: "Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ear of the deaf be unstopped; then will the lame leap like a stag then the tongue of the dumb will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the dry land. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground springs of water." With Christ, all mankind is healed, and the inexhaustible springs of grace convert the world into a new creation. The Lord has transformed everything, and especially men's souls.

The Gospel of the Mass narrates the cure of a deaf-mute. The Lord brought him apart, placed his fingers in his ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Afterwards, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said to him, 'Ephpheta!' (that is, 'Be opened!') At once the man's ears were opened; he was freed from the impediment, and began to speak plainly.

The fingers can signify a powerful divine action, and saliva is thought to have a certain ability to heal wounds. Although it is the words of Christ that work the cure, He wished, as on other occasions, to use visible, material objects which in some way were intended to express the more profound action the sacraments were later going to work in souls. Already in the first centuries, and throughout many generations, the Church used these same gestures of the Lord at the moment of Baptism, while she prayed over the one to be baptized: May the Lord Jesus, who made the deaf hear and the dumb speak grant that at the proper time you may hear his Word and proclaim the Faith.

We can see in this cure which our Lord performs an image of his acting in souls: He frees man from sin, He opens his ears to hear the Word of God and loosens his tongue to praise and proclaim the marvellous works of God. At the moment of Baptism, the Holy Spirit, the finger of the right hand of God the Father, as the liturgy proclaims, freed our hearing to listen to the Word of God, and loosed our tongue in order to announce it throughout the world; and this is continued during our whole life. Saint Augustine, in commenting on this passage of the Gospel, says that the tongue of some one united to God will speak of the good, will bring to agreement those who are divided, will console those who weep. God will be praised, Christ will be announced. These things we will do if we have our hearing attentive to the continuous inspirations of the Holy Spirit and if we have our tongue ready to speak of God, uninhibited by human respect.