OMELIE / Omelie EN

09 set 2018

09/09/2018  23rd Sunday in O. T. - B 

        09/09/2018  23^rd Sunday in O. T. - B 

Reading 1, IS 35,4-7 * Psalm 145 * Reading 2, JAS 2,1-5 * Gospel, MK 7,31

They bring a deaf and dumb to Jesus, asking Him to place His hands on his head. They are positive in same action from His part, even if they come from the Decapolis, therefore, very likely, pagan. Jesus grants them what they want, asking them not to talk about what had happened. His action is compassion, not mercy. The pagans, being ignorant about the Scriptures, would not be able to see the miracle as a sign showing that He is the Messiah.

Isaiah  told us the “ears of the deaf” would have been opened when “here is your God, … He comes to save you”. All the Jews should understand that the coming of Jesus is God visiting His people, that the Messiah has come, salvation has arrived! In the Decapolis however we are among the pagans, therefore Jesus does not want the event to be known: He is at risk to be taken for a healer, because they cannot see a sign in the miracle. Another risk is that, even on the disciples’ part, salvation would be misunderstood and taken as feeling well on earth. It is not the moment for Him to reveal himself as the Messiah: this is going to happen during His passion and His death, and His resurrection then will give it confirmation from God! The man benefited by Him, however, cannot keep quiet, they keep telling their interpretation of what has happened: so Jesus is taken only for men that does things well, a person performing miracles. This is really too little!

At the moment of our baptism the priest repeated for us Jesus’ sign and told us “Ephphatha!”. Our ears as well need to open, our tongue as well need to be loosened. Are we really deaf and dumb? Maybe we became like that again over time? I can see some Christian that, when the word of God is announced, falls asleep, or yawns, or moves around restlessly, or listens without any desire to understand, or is lost in his thoughts that bring him far away…! And then I realised that God’s word does not come to the leaps of some Christian neither in order to be prayed with, nor in order to be passed on to the children; it is not coming even at the moment to give some advise, not even to complete a thought or some reasoning to share with the other men. Deaf and dumb to God’s word! The word said by the priest during the baptism has been only effective as long as we were children, then, who knows, we went back being deaf and dumb! We needed to go back in front of Jesus in order for Him to say again His word to us, and for the ear to open and the tongue to be loosened or, even better, to be freed from that pride that is preventing us from going searching for the word and from using it in life.

Our ears needed to open and our tongue needs to be loosened. When is this going to happen? How will we understand that this has happened? What can we do to make this happen?

First of all, we need to understand who Jesus is. He is the one who has been announced by the prophets, He is the Messiah, sent by God to give us His word, to show us His will, to guide us to stand in front of Him, to enrich us with His life.

To Him we give our existence, to Him we entrust our days, to Him we dedicate time and attention in order for Him to be able to teach us, we learn from Him to forgive and love. When we will have welcomed Him as our Lord, then He will be able to give as ears focused on His word and a loose tongue to talk about Him, to tell others the knowledge that has been given to us! Then our words will not sound empty or hypocritical, because, first of all, our life will be speaking for us. Our life will show the faith in himhypercritical hypocriticalhypohhh, it will show it - as Saint James urges us today - with our love, a love able not to make any difference between rich and poor, because we will not notice the clothes in people, but the face and the heart! We will have learnt from Jesus himself to look at men, to listen to the Father, to open the mouth to utter only the words of eternal wisdom!

Love for the brothers will be rich and true when we will be able to give them the word of salvation, the word which lights up the heart, which gives hope and consolation, that shows the face of God the Father and introduces in our heart the son!

Open ears, loose tongue! We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, because we could listen many times to your word! We give you thanks because sometimes we have been able to talk about you and to give to others as well the light and joy of your knowledge! Our love, in this way has been richer and deeper than when we have given some money to the poor, or our smile and our time to the sufferer.