23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

September 6, 2009

Is 35:4-7
Jas 2:1-5
Mk 7:31-37

When I was studying Italian in Perugia, Italy, I was staying at the old house right in front of the piazza, where people gather every night, making a lot of noise, shouting, singing, dancing. For the first week it woke me every night but then I became accustomed to the noise and it no longer woke me. You could say I became deaf to the noise. (A few weeks afterwards a room at the other side of the house, the quiet side, became vacant and I moved in to the quiet room.) When you get used to noise you almost become deaf to it.

Jesus cured the deaf man in our Gospel but, thank God, deafness is not a problem for most of us here. Instead our problem may be that we are too busy to hear Jesus. We are so busy making money that we do not spend much time at home with our children. We are so busy that life is slipping by at a very fast rate and we need to slow it down.

Jesus healed the deaf man. If we are too busy we can be deaf to the real meaning and joy of life and deaf also to what the Lord is saying to us. Jesus cannot speak to us if we are not silent enough to listen. I would be very surprised if Jesus were able to communicate with you if you were listening to heavy. But if you were silent I would not be surprised if Jesus communicated with you. We all need silence and space for ourselves and also for God.

Jesus healed the deaf man. Sometimes we can be deaf to life and deaf to Jesus. I like the story about the prophet Elijah, He was in a cave and was told to go out and stand on the mountain before God. There was a hurricane but God was not in the hurricane. There was an earthquake but God was not in the earthquake. There was a fire but God was not in the fire. After the fire there was gentle breeze. He knew God was in the gentle breeze so he went out to the entrance to the cave and covered his face. We also need gentle breezes in our life to hear Jesus speak to us. If we have only hurricanes we will not hear the Lord. I would like to end with a story told by Andrew Greely.

Once upon a time there was a lake which usually froze over in the winter. It was a great place to skate and very safe as long as the weather remained cold. Normally parents began to worry about the lake only after March 15 because the lake was in the Middle West where winter lasts till, like May, sometimes. Anyway, this one winter was quite warm (for the middle west) and little pools of water often appeared in the lake at the end of a day, though they froze again over night. The police warned everyone who lived near the Lake to be careful because the ice might be very thin in some places. Parents in turn warned their children, who, like kids often do, skillfully tuned out everything their parents said. So a lot of parents ordered the kids to stay away from the lake. Well, one week in late February there was a fierce cold spell and the Lake seemed to have returned to its old, icy self. The kids all wanted to skate. Teachers told them not to. Their parents told them not to. The kids listened and nodded dutifully. How, they said, could there be thin ice when it was so cold. Most of the kids, more because of fear of being punished then fear of the lake, stood on the shore and watched as five of them, three boys and two girls, shouting that the others were “chicken” skated all around the lake and had a grand old time. Then all five of them were for just a moment in the same place and, well . . . You know what happened. There was a sound like someone had fired a gun. The ice cracked all around them and they were suddenly on an ice island in the middle of the lake at least twenty feet from any other ice – which was still cracking and breaking up. Then the little ice island looked like it was going to sink. Then one little boy, the worst chicken of all because he was smart,  ran into a house and called 911. In ten minutes a police helicopter arrived and lifted the five kids off the ice island. Do I have to tell you what the cops said to them? Or their parents? Or how long they were grounded from skating? Had the kids listened? Or they were deaf because of their excitement and forgot the danger warnings?

Fr. Syl Mutia, SVD
Our Lady of Fatima Parish
Burgos, La Union