Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
This beautiful story of our Lord Jesus Christ healing the mute and deaf man has a timely and powerful message for us today. There are three elements of this message that I would like to bring to your attention.
The first element is the strong emphasis on the prayer of intercession. St. Mark the Evangelist recounts that “as Jesus moved about the streets of the Decapolis, the people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.” Notice here that the people did two things; first, they brought the man to Jesus. Second, they begged Jesus to lay his hand on the man. The people did not simply bring the sick man to the Divine physician, they also pleaded with Jesus, they spoke on behalf of the sick man, they begged Jesus, to heal the sick man. Here we see, among the people, not only a devotion to the prayer of intercession – one that is so vital to our society even today – but also we see among the people a demonstration of the true spirit of brotherhood. We see a deep concern and a universal care for human life. As Christians we have a noble duty, not only to bring all people to Jesus – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – but also to offer prayers on their behalf. It is a very generous act of love to pray for people.
The second element of the message is given by our Lord himself; “He took the deaf man away from the Crowd.” This is very significant. As humans, our sense of hearing is at its best when we seek the silence and the solitude of nature. A place far away from the constant noise of this world is, not only essential in boosting our sense of hearing, it also provides a beautiful and conducive atmosphere which enables us to encounter the Creator who speaks to us in the deep silence of our hearts. Today, more than ever, our sense of hearing is relentlessly being invaded and severely distorted by so much noise launched at it from all sorts of directions, and in so many forms. And it is at this critical moment in history that we must rise and seek those places of quiet, places of solitude where we can listen to God’s gentle voice that is so often blocked by those ruthless rockets of noise. Let us never fear to create silence, within and outside ourselves. And, as the Guinean Cardinal, Robert Sarah put it,
“without silence, God disappears in the noise. And this noise becomes obsessive because God is absent. And Unless the world rediscovers silence, it is lost. The earth then rushes into nothingness.”
(Thought 142 in the Power of Silence).
The third and most important element of this message, is the actual healing of the deaf and mute man. Only the Creator can heal the creature. The one who created the human person is the only one with the cure for its brokenness. We have all experienced this healing in the beautiful Sacrament of Baptism when the Priest touched our ears and our lips and said this prayer, “May the Lord Jesus, who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, grant that you may soon receive His word with your ears, and profess the faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father, Amen.” This powerful prayer of the Church is taken from today’s Gospel account. And, here is a timely reminder that the sense of listening is essential to effective communication in all aspects of our lives. And, just as one cannot give unless one first receives, in the same way, one cannot speak unless one listens first. It is through intentional listening that we are able to inwardly discern what to speak. The control of the tongue depends and flourishes on this willingness to listen. For, as the Lord himself puts it, “out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45.
Given on the Twenty third Sunday of Ordinary Time. September 8th 2024
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