OMELIE / Omelie EN

08 set 2024

08/09/2024 - 23rd Sunday in O.T. - B

08/09/2024 - 23^rd Sunday in O.T. - B

Reading 1 IS 35,4-7 Psalm 145 Reading 2 JAS 2,1-5 Gospel MK 7,31-37

Mark is showing us Jesus while still travelling. He is journeying through far away lands of pagan nations, where He had gone to enjoy greater solitude, in order to teach His disciples patiently and without distractions. In these regions too there is suffering which cannot be solved or relieved: only He could tackle it. In fact, someone asks Him to rest His divine and life-giving hand on the head of a deaf-mute. It is time for a meaningful encounter, the one we all relive in every Baptism.

First of all, we can see that Jesus is not looking for publicity: He stands aside with the suffering man, avoiding to become and make him subject to curiosity. He takes carefully and lovingly care of that poor man, whose ability to communicate normally with others is impaired, but above all whose possibility of listening to the Word of God, and offering it as a gift to his children and any other, is impaired. This possibility is an important gift, without which the man is not complete. Jesus takes action using His own fingers, completing in this way the work started by the Father when He created that man.

Jesus’s fingers touch the deaf man’s ears, which open to be able to hear, above all, His words spreading only love; then the same fingers, wet with saliva, touch the tongue that was mute up to that point, and, in the silence surrounding them, can be heard the truly extraordinary words: “Ephphatha, Be opened”!

These actions are repeated, as we said, every Baptism. When we are immersed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, our ears are opened to hear the reassuring and life-giving Word of Jesus, the Word of the Father revealed by the Son, and our tongue is set loose to repeat that same Word with the truthfulness given by the Spirit. As long as that is not happening, the creation of the man is not complete!

This sign is reaching us every time we come close to be touched by Jesus: He is touching us through the Sacraments of the Church, concrete signs established by His love for each one of us.

The touch of Jesus’s finger is an injection of courage and trust, as Isaiah had already foreseen. This prophet announced the coming of the Lord Jesus, our God, as savior: the sign of His saving presence is precisely opening the blind’s eyes and the deaf’s ears, the leaping of the lame and the joyful singing of the mute’s tongue.

We should continue to say it “to those who are of a fearful heart” so they may find courage and hope again. For the believers it is not an option to be disheartened nor it is allowed to be distrustful. If we see injustices or sufferings, if we find pain and failures, we still know that it is not a case in which “the Lord’s power is limited” (NUM 11,23). This certainty is preventing us from making distinctions among men.

For us the poor and the sick, the disabled and the ignorant are just like everyone else, the rich and the knowledgeable. James, in the second reading, has strongly and simply recommended us to learn from the way God looks at things: He has chosen those “who are poor in the world” to live the faith in Him so they would become an example for everyone. We are not considering them as the most worthy of attention and honour, maybe? Instead, often the rich are the ones who make us suffer and are making fun of our faith, our true wealth. We will then do as Jesus did, who is giving all His attention to the deaf-mute, opening his ears to hear His voice and his mouth so he can loudly proclaim His Word!