Opening to God

            Whenever people come to me for counselling or spiritual direction, the first thing I ask them after listening to their story is“where is God in your experience?”  Most often, they pause, then nod their heads or look up, staring somewhere as they reflect on my question.  But when they get ready to answer my query, their faces would always glow with a sparkle in their eyes or smiles on their lips as if telling me “God has always been with me but I rarely noticed Him.”  A friend once wrote in his blog that “whenever we face difficult situations in life and there is that deafening silence, always remember that the same thing happens when there is an exam:  it is always silent but the teacher is always present.”  Today in our gospel, Jesus is reassuring us of the love of the Father, of His constant presence among us especially in the most trying times of our lives.  Jesus continues to reach out to us, always moving around, visiting us, staying with us.

            Again Jesus 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. (Mk.7:31-32)

            There are two striking things about Christ’s healing this Sunday.  First is the location that happened in a pagan territory.  Mark rarely mentioned the place visited by Jesus unlike today when he specified the Lord going to the “district of Decapolis” or district of ten cities.  It was a region inhabited by pagans and foreigners considered outcasts by Jews who regarded themselves as the chosen people of God.  Jesus did not only reach out to His fellow Jews but even to their considered enemies like pagans and Samaritans.  In today’s gospel, Mark is telling us that Jesus also comes and stays with us in unfamiliar, foreign places and situations in life.  When we feel alienated and lost due to a failure or a defeat, when we feel alone and abandoned and hopeless because of so much pains and sufferings, these are our “Decapolis” where Jesus comes to heal and comfort us.

               The second striking thing about this healing is the manner how Jesus did it:  Jesus 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, “Ephphata!” – that is, “Be opened!”  And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. (Mk.7:33-35) 

               Whenever Jesus comes to visit us and heal us, He would always separate us first from other people and even situations or locations to be totally with Him.  Here we find the value of “constant prayer” that remains very crucial in life even in this modern time  (Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exultate 147-157).  Likewise, Mark never bothered to tell us the name of that deaf mute because we are in fact that deaf mute too who live in our own worlds filled with so many thoughts and words of others and of ourselves except of God.  Jesus “took him off” from the crowd to teach us that important lesson of praying, of separating from the rest to create a sacred space for God in our daily lives where we experience Him personally and intimately – just the two of us, me and God – like our own experience with a friend or a spouse.

               Observe also how Jesus would usually heal by simply speaking.  With this pagan, Jesus not only “took him off” from the crowd but also had to touch his ears and spit to touch his tongue!  Imagine Jesus touching the deaf mute’s tongue with His own saliva, as if putting His personal seal to this unique healing!  Moreover, in this healing Jesus reminds us of the spiritual nature of His coming to us:  then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphata!” – that is, “Be opened!”  And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.  What a beautiful image of the Son of God looking up to heaven, praying and making it known to all that this healing is the will of our loving and merciful Father.  Jesus came precisely to bring God closer to us and to bring us back to Him.  Of the four evangelists, only Mark would always report the Lord’s request not to tell anyone of a healing to stress the spiritual nature of His mission.  Jesus wants to be known as the Messiah, our Savior and not just like any miracle worker providing health and wealth.  Though it is true that there must be tangible signs of the salvation brought by Christ that we have to work for justice and peace in the society, we have to keep in mind also that effecting changes among peoples and the world are the works of God, not of humans.  We are mere sowers of the seeds but it is God who makes that seed to sprout and grow.

              The very word of Jesus to heal that deaf mute is what we also badly need these days, “Ephphata” or “Be opened!”  We need to be opened daily to cleanse our hearts of sins and selfishness.  Like the Pharisees and scribes last week, our faith and worship emanate more from our lips than from our hearts with all the troubles we are into right now as a nation and a Church.  To be opened to God is to keep God in our hearts through daily conversions, not being focused with outward appearances.  Openness to God is heeding the call of St. James in his letter to “show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.”(Jms.2:1)  How sad that today the celebration of the Holy Mass has become more of a show, and worst, a propaganda tool in politics.  When the Mass is celebrated for political reasons, communion is shattered and destroyed because everybody – the priests and the congregation – are not looking up to heaven but looking down to people and to streets for their own solutions to a problem.  To open our hearts to God means we, especially us priests, must go away from the limelight and partisan politics, to be hidden from the crowd so that it is Christ who is experienced because only He changes peoples and nations.  Opening to God is allowing God to do His work in us and through us, always centered on Him and not to one’s self or anyone claiming to be a messiah.  May we open our hearts today to God so He would truly dwell in us.  Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan 3022.

Photo by the author, sunrise at the Dead Sea, 21 April 2017.