11th Sunday after Pentecost

This Sunday is the 11th after Pentecost. First of all, St. Paul will tell us about him being the least of the Apostles, since he had been instrumental in persecuting the early Christians. We have all been guilty of this at some time or other. Whether we talk bad about someone, being intolerant of others at times, and, generally not doing all the time what God expects from us. Admit it. The great saint, St. Augustine, was this way for 30+ years, doing whatever he wanted, disregarding all that is good. Thanks to his holy mother, Monica, and St. Ambrose, he reformed his life and became one of the Doctors of the Church, and one of its most prolific writers. As our beloved Abbot Gueranger says, he (Augustine)was as Saul was for a period of time:

'Like Augustine, who was but imitating Paul, 'he glorifies the just and the good God by publishing both the good he has received and the evil of his own acts; and this in order to win over to the one sole Object of his praise and his love the minds and hearts of all who hear him.' (Another Legend in his own mind). Augustine, in his 'Confessions', talks about himself: 'Great art Thou, O Lord, and exceedingly to be praised. Great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is not number.' 'And yet,' says the saint, 'man wishes to praise Thee--man, a mere speck of Thy creation, who carries about him his own mortality, and the testimony of his sin, and the testimony that Thou resists the proud; and yet this man wishes to praise Thee--man, a mere speck of Thy creation. Receive, then, the homage which is offered by the tongue that was formed for the purpose of praising Thee. Let my flesh and all my bones, that have been healed by Thee, cry out: "Who, O Lord, is like unto Thee?" Let my soul praise Thee, that she may love Thee; and; that she may praise Thee, let her confess Thy mercies. I wish now to go over in my mind all my long wanderings, and I will confess the things which fill me with shame, and will make of them a sacrifice of joy. Not that I love my sins, but it is that I may love Thee, O my God, that I recall them to mind; it is out of love of Thy love that I now recur to those bitter things, that I may taste Thy delights, O Sweetness that never deceives! O Thou that collects all my powers, and recalls them from the painful scattering into which they had been thrown by my separation from Thee. O Thou one centre of all being.

What am I to myself, when I have not Thee, but a guide that leads me to the abyss? Or, what am I, when all is well with me, but a little one that is sucking in the milk which Thou provides, or enjoying Thee, the Food that knows not corruption? And what manner of man is any man, for he is but a man? Let them that are strong and mighty--them that have not as yet had the happiness of being laid low and cast down--let them laugh at me! I am a weak man, and poor, and I give Thee praise. For that I need neither voice nor words; the cries of the thought are what Thou hearest. For when I am wicked, my being displeased with myself is a real praise to Thee; but when I am pious, my not attributing it to myself is again a real praise to Thee; for if Thou, O Lord, bless the just man, it is because Thou hast first justified him when he was ungodly.'

Makes you think, doesn't it? If it doesn't, it should.

Now we hear about Jesus healing the deaf and dumb man. We know He does it, but here is what the holy fathers of the Church tell us:


'This man represents the entire human race, exclusive of the Jewish people. Abandoned for four thousand years in the sides, that is, in the countries of the north, where the prince of this world was ruling as absolute master, it has been experiencing the terrible effects of the seeming forgetfulness on the part of its Creator and Father, which was the consequence of original sin. Satan, whose perfidious craftiness caused man to be driven out of Paradise, has made him his own prey, and nothing could exceed the artifice he has employed for keeping him in his grasp. Wisely oppressing his slave, he adopted the plan of making him deaf and dumb, for this would hold him faster than 'chains of the adamant' could ever do. Dumb, he could not ask God to deliver him; deaf, he could not hear the divine voice; and thus the two ways for obtaining his liberty were shut against him. The adversary of God and man, satan, may boast of his tyranny. The grandest of all God's creations looks like a failure; the human race, in all its branches, and in all nations, seems ruined; for even that people which God had chosen for His own, and which was to be faithful to Him when every other privileges than to deny its Lord and its King, more cruelly than all the rest of mankind...The Church brings him to Jesus, beseeching Him to lay His divine hand upon him. No human power could effect his cure. Deafened by the noise of his passions, it is only in a confused way that he can hear even the voice of his own conscience; and, as to the sounds of tradition, or the speakings of the prophets, they are to him but as an echo, very distant and faint. Worst of all, as his hearing, that most precious of our senses, is gone, so, likewise, is gone the power of making good his losses; for, as the Apostle teaches, the one thing that could save him is Faith, and Faith cometh by hearing.'

Our Jesus groans when they have brought this poor creature before Him...' He opens the ears and loosens the tongue of this man. We should all be attentive to the teachings (ALL OF THEM) and await those words Jesus used to this man; let Him say in regard to us and our senses: "Ephpheta! Be thou opened!