by Fr Joachim Robert
Isaiah 35:4-7
Psalm 145:7-10
James 2:1-5
Mark 7:31-37
Theme: He Makes the Deaf Hear & the Dumb Speak
Dear friends,
Our Readings of today invites us to take a deep look at the closeness of God to His people, how God has been close to the people He loves.
And very often, dear friends, God wants to draw close to us but we sometimes are unable to see God’s closeness in our lives. And I would like to take this time for you to take a look at yourself. How close are you to people whom you love, how close are you to people who are in the margins, how close are you to people who are deaf, how close are you to people who are dumb.
And as we take time to reflect and to think how we were close to them, it makes us to a deeper realisation of how God wants to be close to those people in and through you. Because very often, I speak for my own self, very often we seem to see that God is so distant, that God is unable to notice us in our struggles, in our situations. And when we feel that way, dear friends, the First Reading of today reminds us and says:
To all faint hearts: Courage. Do not be afraid.
The Lord wants to come close to us, dear friends, those who are in the margins, those who are unnoticed, those who are dumb, those who are deaf and those who are in the peripheries. The Lord wants to become close to each and every one of us because He loves us.
In the Prophet Isaiah in the First Reading, it says: The blind, the lame, the deaf, the mute are people whom the Lord wants to draw close.
But sometimes on my own engagement with people, sometimes I tend to feel included, sometimes we make others feel excluded, sometimes we make others feel that they do not belong to God’s kingdom. And I am guilty of it as well.
And today, dear friends, is a reminder that we need to be that manifestation of God’s love, to become the healing presence of God in and through our lives by the way we reach out to one another, in the way we show compassion, in the way we show care, in the way we notice them in our lives. Because sometimes when things are difficult, we allow people to just become landscapes of our life rather than being engaging with them.
And Saint James in our Second Reading invites us and tells us that sometimes in our walk of life, he says, we tend to choose whom we want to welcome. We tend to choose who want to serve. And when we do that, we are not actually allowing the work of God to transform us, change our hearts and to become more and more into the healing presence of God towards one another.
And the Lord invites us and tells us in Saint James that the kingdom of God reaches out to the poorest and the most discriminated. And we need to ask ourselves how are we showing care, showing love towards the people around us.
And especially during this month of September, as we have taken the focus on the theme of Care, let us ask ourselves how do we care for people around us, especially those who are close to us. Our families, our communities, our church and our nation.
Only when we are able to allow God’s love to move us into this attitude of caring for one another, to notice them, to listen to them and to be present with them, are we able to participate in this closeness of God by our act of love and our act of charity.
In the Gospel today, we are given this image of this man who was deaf and who was mute. And we see in that text of scripture, dear friends, yes, this man was deaf but his friends brought him towards Jesus and wants Him to lay His hands on him and want him to be healed.
I just ask how many of us bring the deaf, bring the mute, bring the blinds closer towards Jesus. How many of us allow ourselves to be friends of the poor and the needy and bring them to be included as part of our community and our family.
And I am sure this opportunity during this month of care gives us many, many, many opportunities of how we can befriend those who are in the margins, those are in the peripheries so that we are able to expand our capacity to love, to expand our capacity to care and to expand our capacity to show mercy and compassion just like how Jesus took the deaf man aside, in private, away from the crowd, put His finger into the man’s ears, touched his tongue with spittle and then He said:
Ephphatha. (Be opened).
How are we, dear friends, have we been agents of love and compassion towards one another?
And today as we celebrate this Eucharist, we are invited to be like the friends of the deaf man. We are invited to go and reach out to the people who are in the peripheries so that we can make Jesus known to them.
In our parish, there are so many ways of how we can reach out. In our zones, in our BECs, in our work with the poor, in our work of charity, in our wake group, in our reaching out towards one another. How are we able to become that agents of mercy towards one another and show God’s closeness, that God is among us?
So today as we pray in the Eucharist, dear friends, let us not just speak with our words but allow the closeness of God, the closeness of one another to rain in our community and in our lives.
And I am sure, dear friends, it is not easy. It is not a simple lip service but a gesture of love that we show towards one another that brings about a community that is close, a community that is united and a community that cares.
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