23rd Sunday Ordinary Time: Cycle B

Mark 7:31-37

September 9, 2012

In a way, the deaf man with the speech impediment points to something in ourselves.

He points to our own difficulty in hearing the message of the gospel as it is proclaimed in our own time.

Each of us is in continual need of being healed of our own deafness—not the physical deafness of the man in Mark's gospel, but a more critical illness::

our inability for hearing with the ears of our souls.

We go through life struggling to hear the Word more clearly.

Because if we cannot hear the Word clearly, we cannot proclaim it clearly or live it out well in our daily lives.

Learning to listen in this way to what God is saying and, of equal importance, what our neighbors—family members, coworkers, church leaders—are saying, is a lifelong discipline.

Two words pertaining to hearing can help us with this discipline: the words are "absurd" and "obedience."

Both words have to do with hearing and listening.

The first word, absurd, comes from the Latin roots ab and surdus or absurdus, meaning literally "from deafness" or "completely deaf'

Something is absurd when I am deaf to its meaning.

To many people in our world, the words we will soon declare in our confession of faith, the Creed, are simply absurd.

They have no meaning.

And if we are honest, we have to admit that sometimes they sound a little absurd to us as well.

The atheist, for presumably sincere and complex reasons, finds absurd the notion of a loving God who, out of love for you and me, would send his son into the world.

Such a person is impeded from hearing the voice of God in the words we proclaim. His or her deafness is as real as that faced by Jesus in the gospel.

And what about ourselves?

Do the words we recite in the Creed seem absurd to us?

Of course they do. Why?

Because they are such huge thoughts!

Anyone who says they are not a little hard of hearing when it comes to the great truths we proclaim is not being honest with you.

We are all impeded in our hearing of the Word of God, not because we are insincere or because we do not try, but simply because of the magnitude of the task.

We go through life begging Jesus to heal our deafness a little more, to remove a little more of the impediment, to help us to listen and truly hear what God wants us to hear.

And how does the cure work?

 Is it done with spitting, with touching, with a loud groan?

No, it happens through obedience, the second word I mentioned before.

Obedience also has to do with hearing.

The word "obedience" comes from the Latin roots ob audire, meaning to listen closely or thoroughly.

Most of us don't like the concept of obedience

But obedience does not mean something that is imposed on us against our will; it does not mean "my way or the highway."

It means to listen with the heart; to cultivate such a deep stillness of heart and mind that we hear not only what is being said but also the Spirit's more subtle whisperings.

Obedience means spending time with God in prayer, reflecting on the Scriptures, meditating on the Creed, until we begin to savor the words we repeat so mechanically Sunday after Sunday.

Obedience is practicing lectio divina, the ancient practice of reading Scripture in a prayerful reflective manner

It means a disciplined prayer life—the Liturgy of the Hours, centering prayer, the rosary — doing this in our homes with our children, as a matter of practice.

All of this is obedience.

It is firm commitment to a life of deep listening.

And gradually, over time, in subtle ways, obedience changes us.

The life we follow, the gospel teachings we proclaim, the dogma we declare—these things no longer seem absurd. Our deafness is gradually healed.

Our speech impediment is removed and we can proclaim to one another in our own words,

"He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak".