DEAFNESS – 23rd Sunday Ordinary Time, Year B
The sound of music and birds and airplanes and trains and people is not heard by all. We who can hear can hardly begin to know what it must be like not to be able to hear. It could be if someone is born deaf, they would not know what they are missing and would suffer less. For those who have at one time heard and can’t hear as well now, it becomes extremely painful. They miss a lot and in many cases simply stop trying to hear. Then there are those who have the power to hear, but are extremely selective in what they hear and don’t hear.
Working with any kind of deafness is very hard work. No one can speak plainly who has not heard correctly. Speech impediments are often related to hearing problems. A totally deaf person is called dumb. That doesn’t mean they are not smart. It means they cannot speak. They are mute, lacking the power to make a sound. Sounds cannot be made by someone who hasn’t heard them. To be without the power to hear, and, therefore, the power to speak, places one in a certain form of bondage.
Working to free someone to be able to hear and speak has to be among the most important works in human life. Deafness and dumbness has many forms. We quickly come to know what physical deafness and its consequent dumbness is. We are less appreciative of other forms of deafness, especially spiritual deafness in its many forms and its consequent dumbness or various forms of being unable to speak or respond.
We hear about Jesus’ hard work and groaning to heal the deaf man in Mark’s Gospel. The man could not have been totally deaf since he was able to speak a little. He had “…a speech impediment…” His friends and relatives were concerned enough to work hard to get him to Jesus. They “…begged Him to lay His hand on him”. Jesus worked very hard with the man and groaned indicating a struggle and the difficulty of the healing. He took him away from the crowd. He put His fingers into his ears and touched his tongue unable to make sounds. Then Jesus looked to His Father and exercised His power to heal. “He…said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ that is, ‘Be opened!’”
The Tradition has always seen in the physical healings of Jesus signs of the healing of the soul (spirit) of the person. The Church, in the Baptismal ceremony of an infant, touches the ears and mouth of the infant after he or she has received the Gift of the Spirit and prays Jesus’ prayer. “May the Lord soon touch your ears to hear His Word and your mouth to proclaim His faith to the praise and glory of God the Father.” It presumes the spiritual ears of the adult being baptized have been opened through hearing God’s Word and his or her tongue loosened to proclaim faith. No deafness can be greater than spiritual deafness, with its consequent inability to respond to God. Nothing is greater than when the Lord touches us to hear Him for the first time or to hear Him better, which is a continuous process. “And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.”
Things can enter into our life both physically and spiritually to impair our hearing and, therefore, our speaking. Not too long ago, there was a report about a man who was deaf from an injury. This altered his whole life. One day he was sitting in his yard when a storm came up, and a plank or something hit him in the side of the head. When he came to, he was able to hear. Whatever had blocked his hearing in the first accident was restored in the second one. Sin and fear can often block spiritual hearing. Obstinacy and not wanting to hear God’s Word, or being narrowly selective in which Words of God we listen to, can affect our spiritual hearing and consequently speaking and responding.
No effort is too great to make in keeping our own ears clear to hear, and doing what we can to enable others to hear clearly God’s Word. The prophet Isaiah had to overcome the fear of God’s people before they could hear the good news of God coming to save His people. Saving would be revealed in signs of people being able to see, hear, walk and sing. “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.”
Statistics tell us that perhaps forty percent of people have some hearing problem. There is, no doubt, a great percentage of people with spiritual hearing problems. Some of the signs of this are committing sin clearly against the Word of God, believing and holding on to some idea or falsehood which is clearly opposed to the Scriptures, or not being able to understand or listen to parts of the Word of God. Until I love all the Word and Words of God, I haven’t heard clearly as I might or need to.
Other signs of spiritual deafness may be an inability to speak much about spiritual realities or to connect them to daily life. Great fear of hearing God is another sign, as is not believing the Lord when He says difficult things such as we hear in James. “Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom…” If I want to be materially rich, I may not want to hear such a truth. Yes, it’s hard work hearing when we do not have spiritual hearing, and, therefore, speaking impediments. And it is hard work helping others to overcome spiritual deafness and dumbness and its many forms.
We constantly need to pray for ours and others ears to “Be opened!” more by the Lord. If we can hear spiritually, we know we have been set free and are being set even more free. “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” Praise the Lord my soul!
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