Sunday 23 (B): Read Mk 7, 31-37
Those
of you who must listen to my Scottish accent week in and week out are probably wondering if the deaf man with the ligament
in his speech in today’s Gospel is me! Yet both he and I have one thing in common: we did not choose to be born this
way … Indeed, many of the characteristics with which we were all born were not chosen by us: they were given to us.
This is also true of many of the wounds and hurts which we sustain in life. They are often gratuitous, not our fault.
Yet, strangely,
equally gratuitous, and even fortuitous, can also be the healing of those very wounds. Had Jesus not gone to the Decapolis region, as is recounted at the beginning of today’s Gospel extract, the deaf and mute man would
most probably have died while still being deaf and dumb. What made the difference? Both he and those who brought him to Jesus
were sufficiently aware of, and distressed by, his condition, and they were also sufficiently alert to the visitation
of Providence in Jesus, to turn a tragic situation into one of “astonishment”,
of astounding joy. For His part, Jesus shares in their distress by Himself “groaning” at the man’s pain
and in healing him; it was almost as if Jesus was absorbing the man’s speech impediment in Himself by groaning. Jesus
also shares, albeit quietly, in their joy – not so much the psychological and human joy of the healing (though that
too), as in their spiritual joy of coming to believe in Him as Healer, as Savior. It is the joy of salvation of which Isaiah
sings with poetic beauty in the first reading of today.
In
healing the deaf and dumb man, Jesus performs a little ritual which may seem distasteful to us today: He puts His fingers
in the man’s ears and saliva on his tongue. It was commonplace in those times for healers to impart their healing power
by touching the afflicted areas; saliva was considered as a life-giving element. But more important than anything is the prayer
of Jesus, His prayer of groaning to the Father as He looks heavenwards and says: “Ephphathah! Be opened!” Perhaps
some of you will recall that, during the rite of baptism, the priest or other minister still performs a version of that rite
of Jesus when he blesses the ears and lips of the baby or adult, adding the prayer that the newly baptized might always have
open ears to hear the Word of God and a loosened tongue to proclaim it plainly. What is now sought is the healing, not of
the physical faculties of the baptized, but of the spiritual faculties of listening and speaking. The object of those faculties
is Jesus Himself, the living and incarnate Word of God.
It
is surely instructive that Jesus first, then the Church throughout the centuries in the baptismal rite, would use the word
“ephphathah, be opened”. For it suggests that the real suffering of the human soul is somehow linked with being
closed.
To
close up, like a porcupine, is a natural reaction to feeling, or actually being, threatened or attacked. It can be the reaction
therefore precisely to those gratuitous wounds I spoke of initially, inflicted on us by other human beings, sometimes even
by those closest to us, without any fault on our part. I suppose that all of us have received such wounds in the fray of married,
family, social and even Church life, and indeed from our most tender years. I also suppose that each of us, sometimes gratuitously,
and other times out of anger or revenge, has in his or her turn, hurt those we love, and not just those we do not. One philosopher,
whose name escapes me (either Hobbes or Voltaire), called this crazy tendency in the human being the syndrome of “homo
homini lupus”, i.e. “man is a wolf to his fellow-man”. He concluded that society had to be organized on
the basis of the principle of self-defense, so as to keep the “wolf” in the other at bay.
Such
an approach may seem realistic, but it is certainly pessimistic, for such a society will remain essentially closed, as will
its marriages and families, surviving only by a mutual contract not to kill one another!
How
different is the vision of Jesus! He offers a whole new understanding of man and woman, individually, as married, as family,
as society, as Church and as world. It is a vision contained as if by genetic code in His programmatic prayer: “Ephphathah!
Be opened!” Naturally, this requires the difficult attitudes and virtues of courage and trust on the part of each and
of all. But more importantly, it requires, and will receive, the power and grace of the visitations of Jesus in the lives
of all these different components of the human community. If, on our side, we loosen the bonds which shackle us to our dysfunctionalities,
and unleash the powers of our paining, hurting and groaning, Jesus will visit us and absorb our bleeding, and heal us from
being closed in upon ourselves to being open to one another and to Him.
Undoubtedly,
we must first recognize that indeed we do hurt. This is so often the basic problem. We will say all too quickly, “I
have no real pain in my life”, even although our hearts are bleeding. We so easily bury our pain deep in our psyche
and in our hearts, often precisely because it is so great. Think of a child who feels unloved by his parents: he will know
it, but feel guilty and deny it, saying, “how can my parents not love me? How can I think such a thing? How ungrateful
of me!” And so the pain of no love is made worse by the pain of denial and guilt. As the child grows, the pain grows
too and expresses itself in any kind of problem, from addiction to murderous designs and in any of the other ills that afflict
our families and society. And this is just one example of many, many more! Hence, since we so easily bury our wounds, we may
need help to see them and help to feel distress over them, help to groan and grieve in them. Likewise, since we often do not
remain alert to the presence or visitations of Jesus, we may need help to sense His loving power within us, to hear His groaning
deep within us, for indeed our Jesus is a loving Savior who groans in empathy, sympathy and compassion for our pain. And what
does He groan? “Ephphathah! Be opened, that I might heal you and make you whole!”
We
need to encourage one another and to seek together the genetic code of openness.
There are human and spiritual, Christian resources available, and we need to have the courage to prioritize them in time and
money. For the healing of hearts, the opening of hearts will be the source for the healing of marriages, families, society
and, indeed, those aspects of the Church’s life which seem not yet to have fully opened to the Savior.
Vulnerability
is frightening. To be open and remain open, we must remain vulnerable. Unless we are prepared to stay vulnerable with each
other, our fate will be the hurt and anger of isolation, even in the midst of a big family, a big city, a big Church.
In
the Book of the Apocalypse, the wounds of the Lamb of God are seen glorified in heaven. Our wounds can kill us, but if we
let them be opened to the Lamb, they too will become our glory.
Let
us groan in prayer with Jesus, that the whole of our person, body and spirit, may be opened to His healing power, and that
the isolation and imprisonment within which we are enclosed in ourselves, our marriage, our families, our society and even
our Church and world, may be ended.
Lord
Jesus, in Your great mercy, hear my groaning and cry out within my soul: “Ephphathah! Be opened!” Amen.
Msgr. Peter Magee
September 6th, Our Lady of the Presentation,
Poolesville, Vigil Mass, 5.30 pm
September 7th, Our Lady of the Presentation,
Poolesville, 8.00 am; St. Matthew’s, DC, 10.00 am.
