11th Sunday after Pentecost

"And they bring to Him one deaf and dumb, and they besought Him that He would lay His hands upon him."--Mark 7, 32.


Today is the 11th Sunday 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 great 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.' 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?


Now in the Gospel 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.' (Notice that Faith comes by hearing, NOT by reading. Reading can help us, but hearing is the KEY!)

And, by means of God's Holy Word, man is told of the joys of heaven, the glory therein, and of the terrible and eternal torments which are prepared for sinners in hell. It penetrates the ears of the body, but the spiritual hearing is gone. The human race goes recklessly on, living in a state of indifference as if wholly unconcerned for the future. Alas! Christians--Catholics--are no better, if they were only aware of it! They act as did the Jews, when St. Stephen preached to them: "They stopped their ears;" that is, they resolutely avoid attending service at those hours, when they would be reminded of their duties to God; or, when they are present, they attend not to the word of salvation, even if they hear it exteriorly. O folly! folly! To seek after the transitory joys and honors of earth in preference to listening to the Divine Word; to plunge, perhaps, into the vilest dissipations, rather than mortify their passions; to listen to the voice of the worldling or infidel, yet to close their hearts against the warning voice of God's minister, who seeks to win souls for Christ.

O Lord, preserve us from the evil of willful deafness of the soul; for, when it becomes chronic, all hope of salvation is over forever! Amen!

Christ put His finger into the ears of the deaf and dumb man. What signifies this? It admonishes us, that if we take an interest in the conversion of sinners to a holy life, or of heretics to the One True Faith, we should not make use of lengthy arguments and abstruse explanations to lead them to the path of right and truth; for plain reasons, based on admitted truths, and confirmed by experience, have most weight.

For heretics and infidels, the consideration of the following truths would be most beneficial: There is but one God and Creator; as a rational being, I am immortal; therefore, between God and me there exists a relation which is called Religion, and which is founded upon the revelation of God to man, since reason alone, and of itself, is not explicit concerning the consequences of that relationship. Christ was the first teacher of this divinely revealed religion, and after Him, by His own appointment, the Apostles and their successors--the bishops and priests of the Church. This Church, founded by Him, is the Catholic Church, which is therefore the Only True One, and, the only one in which salvation can be found. If those who are separated from the fold of Christ, either by infidelity or some perverted form of religion, show themselves inclined to enter her fold, it is unwise to lose time in lengthy discussions; but go to meet them, rather, with outstretched arms. Show them the truth in all its sublimity, and pray earnestly to God that He may bless your efforts for Christ's dear sake.



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!' Let us hear what we're to hear and speak what we are suppose to, and to do it in the manner He expects of us.