At this Holy Mass, as we receive the Word of God become flesh in the Holy Eucharist, along with His pierce heart still flowing out blood and water, the source the sacramental life of the Church, let us ask Him, Jesus-God Himself, to heal us. We are like the deaf and mute man in our Gospel today- we need Jesus to take compassion on us.

Today in all of the readings and prayers of the Holy Mass we hear a call to hope and to absolute confidence in the Lord. In and through Jesus Christ all mankind can now find healing by drinking from the inexhaustible springs of grace flowing fourth from Jesus pierced heart, a pierced Heart still available on earth through the miracle of the Holy Mass. In fact, the Holy Eucharist is the pierced Human Sacred Heart of Christ. The grace flowing from this pierced Heart—from the Eucharist, converts the whole world into a new creation in and through Christ. The Lord has transformed everything, healing men’s souls, at least those who open their hearts to His Sacred Heart, who offers their in response to the offering of Jesus’s Heart to them.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus performs a miracle of grace- He opens the ears of a deaf man and heals his speech impediment. Jesus reaches out in compassion to this poor man, revealing to those who witness this miracle (and to us) His divine power…Jesus raises His eyes to heaven, and says to the man, “Ephpheta!” (That is, Be opened) and at once the man’s ears where opened. The man was freed from his impediment, and began to speak plainly.

As could be imagined, the people who witnessed this were astonished. They wondered who this Jesus might be. They all knew the book of Isaiah well and knew the prophecy we heard in our first reading; so the thought in their minds was, “could Jesus be the messiah?” They knew this miracle was a sign of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah (that we heard in our first reading). And as result, it raised their expectations of Jesus being the long promised Messiah, and it awakened their hope in God’s promises. In this man—Jesus, God was indeed was fulfilling everything He had promised. Let us look closer at this miracle and discover what it means for us.

A person who is deaf and cannot speak is unable to really communicate with others. A loss of hearing is very isolating, some say even more so than losing ones sight. The deaf can be left out of conversations and activities because they cannot hear what’s being said. Hearing lose can cause depression, fear; and even more so than isolation from others, isolation from God Himself resulting in a loss of hope. (I personally experienced this through three ear surgeries. During my last surgery, shortly after I was ordained, I almost completely lost my hearing for a time. I felt incredibly isolated, so much so that I began to get Closter phobic; I never imagined a hearing loss could cause such feelings, I even thought my priesthood was over before it ever really began-- I must admit I even began to lose hope).

I think probably even tougher than not begin able to hear, is not being able to talk. I have had experience with those who have suffered a stroke. Again, it must be a very isolating and lonely place. A person wants to talk, wants to communicate with those he loves, the words are right there in his mind, but the words and ideas just won’t come out right or won’t come out at all. How incredibly isolating this must be.

I am sure then, it was the same for the man we read in today’s Gospel—try to put yourself in his shoes. He cannot hear or speak. He must have been very alone and isolated, living as it were separated from family and friends. Jesus comes to him, and heals these afflictions and the man is not only healed of the hearing loss and speech impediment, but he is now able to be united with his family and friends, to communicate with them and tell them with his own voice that he loves them and to be able to hear them say they love him in return. He begins to have hope again.

As important as the reunion with his family and friends must have been, even more importantly is his being reunited as it were, with God. In other word, more important than his physical healing, Jesus heals this man’s rupture with God. This man can now actually hear the voice of God Himself--Jesus, and so receive the truth needed in order to be saved. He hears the teachings of God from Jesus’ own lip; thus fulfilling another prophesy from Isaiah, “your children shall be taught by God…” (cf. Isaiah 54;13).

However, not only can this man now hear Jesus’ audible voice (and so, God’s audible voice), but he can also now hear the voice of God and His Holy Word in his soul. By healing the man’s isolation from God caused by deafness and muteness of the man’s soul, Jesus restores the man’s supernatural hope! Through the healing of grace received from Jesus this man can now receive the Word of God and through the same grace speak the Word of God in thought, word and deed and so become intimate with God, speaking and hearing God, becoming one with God.

We ourselves, may not have any physical problem with our physical hearing or our ability to speak, but do we have a problem with our spiritual hearing and speech. In other words, do we truly listen and allow the Word of God to penetrate us and to transform us, to change us more and more? For all of us, we may develop, however slowly, a deafness in our receiving the Gospel and a muteness in speaking the Gospel.

The truth is, is that the noise and clamor of the world can so easily drown out the whisper of God, leaving us with only the things and cares of this world ever in our ears and on our lips. We can allow ourselves to be deaf to Jesus’ call to conversion in our daily lives and so lose our ability to speak; and even more importantly, lose our ability to live the Gospel we have heard. Our Holy Mother Church, in the prayers of her sacraments, constantly reminds us of our need to ask God for the grace of healing of our ears, of our hearts and minds, so we can speak the truths of the Gospel to others with our mouths and more importantly with our actions.

In the earliest times of the Church’s life, and even till today, the Church in administering Her incredible, powerful sacraments, which dispense the healing power of Jesus, of God in our day, uses the same gestures that Jesus used in today’s Gospel. For example, at the moment of baptism, the priest prays over the one to be baptized, or should I say, Jesus through the priest prays over the one to be baptized; and He uses the priest’s finger to make a sign of the cross over their mouth and ears, saying, “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 (especially with your life).”

And today at this Mass, and at every Mass, just before the Gospel was proclaimed we made the sign of the cross on our forehead, on our lips and over our heart. Hopefully we thought about what this gesture means and why we do it just before the proclamation of the Gospel. The signing is a plea to the Lord for the grace each one of us absolutely needs in order to allow the Word of God to be always on our minds, on our lips and in our hearts. And more deeply it means that Gospel should be deeply rooted in our very person, penetrating and renewing the faculties of our soul, of our very being. The listening to the Word of God, each and every week at Sunday Mass and in our daily reading of it should change us; it has the power to do so if we let it. It should penetrate our hearts and minds so we can live what we have heard, live it in thought, in word and in deed. But first we have to open our hearts, and we need Jesus to help us.

The reading and taking into ourselves as our own the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the antidote or cure for our sins of commission and omission, that is for our deafness and muteness. We receive the Gospel so we can be healed of our sins and begin again to live in freedom in order to do what Jesus asks us to do, in order to love. We allow the truth, which we know from the Word of God, to take root in us, to affect the way we live each and every day, less we become hearers of the Word only and not doers of the Word, thus deceiving ourselves (James 1:22).

In the healing in today’s Gospel we can see the healing that our Lord wishes to perform in our own soul. He frees this man from sin; and by doing so, He opens his ears to hear the Word of God and loosens his tongue to praise and proclaim the marvelous works of God. We all need Jesus to heal us from the ways we have closed off ourselves from receiving the Gospel, namely our sins. We need Jesus to come with his compassion and heal the inner deafness and muteness that creeps into our lives in order to free our hearing to listen to His words, to loosen our tongues in order to announce His words, His teachings, His truths, to the world by what we say and most importantly what we do.
St. Augustine, in commenting on this passage of the Gospel, says that the tongue of someone 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…And I would add, Hope will be restored.

At this Holy Mass, as we receive the Word of God become flesh in the Holy Eucharist, along with His pierce heart still flowing out blood and water, the source the sacramental life of the Church, let us ask Him, Jesus-God Himself, to heal us. We are like the deaf and mute man in our Gospel today- we need Jesus to take compassion on us. Jesus, the healer of our deafness, of our muteness, of our souls, is truly present in the tabernacle and in just a short while on this Altar, let us surrender ourselves to Him, because the doctor can’t heal us unless we come to him, and Jesus can’t heal us unless we come to Him fully and with faith, come to Him not only in body but with our whole heart, mind and soul as well, offering ourselves completely in love and with total trust in response to His total offering to us in love. Our Lady, Mother of our Hope, pray for us…Lead us to the Eucharistic.…