Last Sunday’s Gospel reading was about Jesus healing a man who couldn’t hear or speak.1 So that’s what Fr. Greg talked about: along with how it ties in how we’re living today.
A tip of the hat to Fr. Greg, for letting me make a transcript of his homily:
- Healing the Deaf Mute of Decapolis
- The Purpose of the Messiah
- Deafness as a Cultural Preference
- Babies, Birth Rates, Families: and Statistics
- Planning Ahead, and Praying
- Video: Gospel Reading and Homily at St. Paul’s, Sauk Centre, MN; September 8, 2024
Healing the Deaf Mute of Decapolis
The healing of the deaf and the mute. This man who cannot hear, and he’s not able to speak.
It’s a very physically graphic image we have today: more graphic than almost all of the other healings in the whole Bible.
This one gives more concrete sensational images for us.
In fact, this healing is more complex than most of the rest of them, in that it takes Jesus seven steps for this healing as he goes through this.
(1) One-On-One Healing
So the first step is, he takes the man off by himself. Now, in most of the healings, somebody comes to him and he just heals him right there in the public view.
This one, he takes off by himself. He’s not doing it for show.
He’s doing it because he — everyone he heals, he love singularly and individually — but for some reason, this one needs to be by himself. And Jesus knows that this is something required for that man. And so it’s a one-on-one healing.
(2) Touching His Ears
The second thing Jesus does is, he puts his fingers into his ears.
When I had little nieces and nephews I — maybe some of you have done this, when you ‘poke your finger through your head’, and you ‘scratch the inside of your cheek’ — that’s not what Jesus was doing. Okay?
But he touched his ears. There’s something really physical about that. In order to heal his ears. There was a direct contact.
(3) “Unusual to Us” — Jesus Spits
The third thing Jesus does, which is unusual to us, is: he spits.
Now, in the ancient world, back before we had ointments for everything, lotions for everything, and oils, and all this other stuff, saliva was perceived as something therapeutic.
You know, you might even think of a dog’s saliva, that’s actually helps clean out wounds better than our own mouths. They have cleaner mouths than we do, right? So that saliva was seen as something therapeutic.
And I don’t want you to think he’s spitting in the guy’s mouth. He’s not. He’s spitting on his own finger.
(4) A Second Touch
And then he touches — he touches — the tongue. Almost as if to give it a light pinch. Right?
And so again, a second direct touch: once for the ears, once for the tongue.
(5) Jesus Looks Up to Heaven
The fifth step he takes is, he looks up to Heaven. Now what is that a gesture of?
Well, I know what it’s a gesture of for me. When I look up to Heaven, it’s a gesture of prayer: “oh God, help”; or “oh God, praise your Holy Name”; or “oh, God, you are more glorious than the stars”. It’s some kind of a gesture of prayer.
So Jesus is not just healing this man by himself. He’s interceding for the man. He’s being an intercessor. Calling upon the Father and the Holy Spirit to bring healing with him.
(6) He Groans
The fifth [!] thing he does, and this is the only place in all of the Gospels this word is ever used, he groans. He groans. Jesus groans. He’s looking up to Heaven, and he groans: “ooh“.
Now a groan throughout the Old Testament — there’s several different indications — it’s always got a negative connotation. Like something is so bad, it’s unbearable, kind of groan.
I’m not sure that’s what Jesus is doing. He probably doesn’t like at all that this man is so deficient in his faculties. He’s groaning. But St. Paul gives us a clue.
St. Paul tells us that we are to pray with inexpressible groanings — I think he’s talking about the gift of tongues — but he says with inexpressible groanings: that the Holy Spirit will intercede for us.2
So he’s calling on the Holy Spirit. That groan is a calling on the Holy Spirit to intercede with him for this man.
Huh! Have you ever groaned? Maybe after a long day. Something like that. He groans.
(7) Ephphatha!
And the seventh thing he finally does, is, he says “ephphatha!” — come out! or “be opened!” I should say. “Ephphatha!” “Be opened!”
Now that he has interceded, and he has done the touching for that healing, now he commands. Now that power of the Spirit and the Father with him are unified with him in order to for him to command the healing: “be opened!”
He has authority to command.
You have probably never thought to command healing.
But do you not groan when somebody is sick, or injured? Especially if they’re in the hospital?
Do you not look up to Heaven? Like him? Do you not touch the place that might be injured? Maybe it’s a broken bone, or maybe it’s a rib. You’re gentle, but you might touch that.
Have you ever thought that you are so filled with God’s Holy Spirit through baptism, and through prayer, that you would have the authority, like Jesus and with Jesus, to say “be healed!”
I’m thinking most of us have not done that. Oh, we have such little faith. That’s what Jesus does. And in another part of the Gospel he says ‘you will do greater things than I’ — when the Holy Spirit comes.3 Maybe we need to be more bold in our intercession, and even commanding that healing.
But he says “ephphatha!” — “be opened!”
The Purpose of the Messiah
You know, what I find really interesting about this passage is: he just heals a man so that he can hear and speak, and then he tells the man, ‘now don’t tell anybody’.
‘You just gave me a voice so I can speak, and now you’re saying don’t tell anybody!’
What’s going on with that? That’s — that’s just weird. Okay?
Jesus tells ‘don’t tell anyone’, because he doesn’t want them to just focus in on these physical healings.
In the Gospel of Mark, it’s called the messianic secrets.
He uses for the first half of the Gospel, Jesus tells people ‘don’t tell anybody’; the second half of the Gospel, he doesn’t say that any more — because the second half of the Gospel, now he is revealing what’s going to happen to himself at the Cross, which is the healing of — taking away of sins.
It’s the purpose of the Messiah: to have the forgiveness of sins. And once the fullness of the purpose is being revealed, then he doesn’t tell ’em to not say any more.
So many times, people can focus in on what is sensational, instead of on what is most important.
Okay. So I went through all of this.
Sidon, the Decapolis, and a World of Gentiles
One of the other things that’s kind of important here is — he did this in the region of Sidon and the Decapolis, the Sea of Galilee. He does this in gentile territory.
He doesn’t do this where the Jews are, he does this where the gentiles are, as if to say through his action ‘I mean to save the whole world, not just Jews. I mean to help the whole world know me and love me’.
Because the gentiles, they are deaf to the voice of God. They do not have the revelation of God. And the gentiles, they’re not able to speak about God’s mercy and compassion, because they’re not able to hear the message.
The gentiles are deaf and mute.
But Jesus is giving that indication that there will be a day: when all of the world, the gentiles as well as the Jews, ‘will have their ears opened to my revelation’, his resurrection, and also be able to speak of it as you and I do so freely, in our lives, in our country, freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Okay, so: father, where are you going with all of this?
My gosh.
Deafness as a Cultural Preference
Just point-blank, we got an election coming up. But we are living in culture that is more like the gentiles than like the Jews.
We are living in a culture — not every segment, or every pocket of the culture, but by and large — in our music, in our movies, by large, in our culture, in our magazines, in our conversations, in our schools, in our government: everywhere we look in our culture, there is a silencing of God’s voice.
God’s voice is less and less welcome in our culture.
Our culture desires to be deaf to his voice.
And for those who are brave, and those who do speak out; sometimes boldly, sometimes a little less — they’re getting cancelled. They’re not being allowed to speak. There is real censorship happening throughout many ways of communication.
Our culture is becoming deaf and mute: to God’s voice, to what God desires.
I’m just going to zero in on one thing, and maybe mention a couple others. But —
Babies, Birth Rates, Families: and Statistics
I was listening to an article or a column or something like that on the news.
They were saying that there were 3.6 million babies born last year. 3.6 million babies born last year. Sounds like a lot, but it’s the fewest number born of babies born in a single year since 1979. There weren’t even that many people in America in 1979.
Holy smokes, that’s crazy.
The birth rate today is an average of 1.6 babies per woman. Average of 1.6 babies per woman today. The scientists around the globe will say for a healthy, sustainable society, that rate needs to be 2.1 or more.
2.1 is the replacement value, so to speak. Because sometimes children die, or sometimes people die young. So it needs to be 2.1 Not just 2.
Wow.
Just for comparison, in the 1950s, at the height of our American birth rate, it was 3.4 per woman. Wow, what a drastic change.
You know, we are so called to be pro-life. But not just pro-life: pro-family.
Our culture is tearing our families apart. It’s trying to confuse us on what is a real family. What is the nuclear family? What is the family God intended?
Now, we don’t all have the ideal family. I don’t have the idea family, either.
But we know the ideal family is mom, dad, and children. Ideally.
How can we be more pro-family, more pro-life, more pro-freedom?
The Greatest Blessings on Earth
You see, we have a society that is more and more failing to value children. We have a society that is more and more at risk of losing its sense of purpose, its sense of continuity, as in propagating ourselves through children.
Our sense of responsibility to the common good is being depleted by the culture we’re in. The culture we’re in is growing more and more anti-family, anti-life. It’s a culture that views children more as a burden than as a blessing.
Not everyone in the culture, not every pocket of the culture, but at large, our culture is going that direction: where we’re viewing children as burdens, instead of blessings.
Children who are present, I want you to know: you are greatest blessings on earth. God knit you in your mothers’ wombs,4 and he loves you, and we love you so much.
Valuing Children
You see, children make us better people.
Anybody who has children will tell you: they call us to be more loving, they call us to be more patient — oh, do they call us to be patient — they call us to be more caring; they call us to be more virtuous. They call us to out of ourselves to think about them more than we think about ourself.
Children help us be better people. Children help us be a better society.
So how can we more celebrate life? How can we more realize that our babies are blessings? That our children are gifts? And that they give us hope for the future?
We’re being told more and more that we’re entering a phase of society that is becoming more hopeless, despairing more. Maybe that’s ’cause we’re devaluing children.
If we would love and respect our children more in the eyes of God, as a culture — I think you guys are doing pretty good — but as a culture: wow, that would make a difference.
Looking Ahead
Did you know that 44% of the young people today are considering not having children? Almost 50% of America is not considering to have children.
That should be raising our eyebrows. Especially when God himself says “be fruitful and multiply”. It’s one of our purposes. One of our first and greatest purposes.5
Did you know that 23% of our young people give a reason that they’re concerned — they’re too concerned about climate change to want to bring children into this world.
Hmm. I don’t understand that whole connection. But something to be thought about. Hm. Pretty crazy.
Planning Ahead, and Praying
But how can we, with the little bit of influence we have — in our voices, with our families, not only with the election box, or the computer nowadays, but in our schools, in our school boards, in our day cares, in our society; how can we celebrate life more?
There’s so much that could be said.
My point for us today, though, is — take it to prayer. Where are we being deaf to the voice of God? Where are we being mute? Too afraid to speak out what is true, right, and holy?
Let’s ask God for a fresh outpouring of that Holy Spirit. That all of us can be more courageous: to speak up — the great value of life — and to speak up in order to save our nation from catastrophe.
God love you. God love us all. Let’s have hope. We know that he’s in charge, he’s in control ultimately, so let’s stay close to him.
Video: Gospel Reading and Homily at St. Paul’s, Sauk Centre, MN; September 8, 2024
Gospel reading for Sunday, September 9, 2024:
“Again he left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis.
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (that is, ‘Be opened!’)
And [immediately] the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.'”
(Mark 7:31–37)
Making sense, even though it’s counter-cultural:
- “Liberal? Conservative? Republican? Democrat? No: Catholic”
(July 27, 2024) - “Truth, Beauty, and the Evening News”
(June 15, 2024) - “Free to Agree With Me: Cancel Culture and Freedom of Expression”
(November 18, 2023) - “Couney’s Baby Incubators vs. the Progressive Era”
(February 8, 2021) - “Where Have All the People Gone?”
(November 23, 2018)
2 St. Paul, groans, and the Holy Spirit:
3 “…and will do greater ones than these…”:
4 God loves us, and wants to adopt us; all of us:
- Psalms 139:13 “…you knit me in my mother’s womb”
- Romans 8:15
- Ephesians 1:3–5
- Peter 1:3–4
- 1 John 3:1
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1-3, 27-30, 52, 1825, 1996
- Jesus, and an offer that makes sense to me
- Genesis 1:27–28
- Putting Genesis and the news in perspective
I remember the homily I heard for this Gospel reading in the Mass I went to talking about the touches from Jesus being a further show of how far He’ll go for everyone. Like, the society He was around back then was very against touching those they considered unclean, and while I’m sure that folks back then also understood that being bad is easy and good not, they also had a lack of forgiveness, a lack of recognition that we are meant to improve, which also implies that we’re coming from a more flawed state. And while I don’t think this is a new problem, especially considering how connected it is to confusing love for pride, I think we folks of today especially confuse forgiveness for enabling. I’m reminded, then, of how I’ve been feeling this push to be open about my flaws in humble ways and inspire my fellow fools to properly grow together rather than to follow the more popular “Accept me or screw off” mindset and be stingy about helping anyone I consider lower than me. And of course I can’t help everyone. I’m just one guy. But even if I were meant to be the smallest and weakest person ever, I’m still also one of God’s many instruments, and what matters most is that I learn and do my best, that His will be done, however that must go, even if that truth outdoes my weak sense of it over and over and over again.
Forgiveness is not enabling. Definitely. I’d add, & have said, love is not approval. Being open and honest – makes sense to me. So does remembering that humility isn’t low self-esteem (is that phrase still in use?), it’s being accurate about self-knowledge: and acknowledging God’s hand.
But what do I know? I’m just some guy living in central Minnesota. 😉
Low self-esteem is a phrase that’s still very much in use, Mr. Gill, especially with the pushes for mental health awareness lately.
Thanks for the update. And it’s good to hear that mental health awareness is on the cultural radar.
You’re very welcome, Mr. Gill! And I think I’ve said something like this somewhere in another post’s comments section or a few on your blog, but it’s also important to remember that awareness is one step among a bunch more that we must take.