Here is my homily for the weekend. God bless all!
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Isaiah 35:4-7a; James 2:1-5; Mk 7:31-37
September 7/8, 2024
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, and the tongue of the mute will sing…. be strong, fear not!
What are the impediments in your life? What are the things that keep you from hearing and seeing and speaking about your faith?
Have you ever heard God say to you, Ephphath, be healed? Believe me, God wants you to hear it now. Will you hear him? What blinds you? What keeps you from speaking boldly about your experience with Jesus, like the man in the Gospel did?
The answer, I believe, is we are sorely wounded and have not yet been healed. I have come to believe that we are impeded by our wounds, and we think it’s normal. We have become silent and incoherent, and we have been okay with that.
We must change. We must be healed. We will only be healed if we have a direct experience of the Incarnate God, i.e., Jesus, like the man in the Gospel.
We need to understand what it is that has hurt us so much that we fail to speak out about our faith, we fail the poor, the elderly, the sick, and the “worthless” in our society, like St. James warns us in the second reading.
We need to figure out what it is, what deep wounds we are carrying around inside us, as individuals and as a nation, that make us hate — I use that word deliberately — hate ourselves so much that we accept the violence toward our unborn children, we are increasingly accepting euthanasia of our elderly and those considered useless, and think these crimes are acts of love. The pro-life battles we have been fighting are never going to end until we figure out what it is within us that we dislike so much that we accept abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and the indirect killing of the poor through our neglect of them.
The problem is in us. We are the problem. We have to start with ourselves. We need to be healed so we can hear better, see better, and speak boldly about what is the truth.
What I just tried to say in a psychological way (thank you Dr. Freud), I’ll now try to say in a theological manner. Satan has entered our lives and his work is evident. He is the father of lies and hatred. Satan plants hatred in anyone who listens to him. Satan wants so much for us to hate— especially when we don’t even know we are doing it. He works undercover and disguises hate as something good. He couples his hate with his lies. Satan wants us to think that hate is good, so we will choose to do it thinking we are loving someone. That is the great lie of Satan, i.e., that to hate is good.
What lies, have we accepted? How deeply have I been wounded in this way?
Healing and truth are found only in an encounter with the Incarnate God, who is Jesus. How will you encounter him and be healed? When will you hear him say to you, Ephphatha? It is not that difficult to hear him.
Jesus is the Incarnate God now ascended into heaven, but He lives yet in his people. How then will you encounter him and be healed? Look at the crucifix! Who and what do you see there? Jesus, yes, but look deeply. Who is there with him on that cross?
I see an unborn child in danger of abortion. Mary’s pregnancy would be considered a “problem pregnancy” nowadays. Think of it. A fourteen year old girl, pregnant, and Joseph was not the father. Can you imagine the scuttlebutt, the questions about her character? Nowadays, Mary would probably be counseled to have an abortion.
I see a terminally ill man. Jesus was dying on that cross. What did the people do? They wanted him to be put out of his misery before sundown so they could get on with the Sabbath. So, I see every terminally ill person in danger of physician-assisted suicide.
I see an unjustly condemned man. On the crucifix, I see every man on death row.
I see a homeless man. Jesus had nowhere to lay his head. On that cross I see the homeless of today.
I see a foreigner. Mary and Joseph took Jesus across international boundaries to save his life. So, I see all those foreigners seeking the same in our country.
I see what Mother Teresa would call “the poorest of the poor.” Jesus owned nothing except the tunic on his back.
My point is we can and will encounter the Incarnate God in all these people of our day. If we encounter them, and not turn away from them, we will be healed. We can encounter all of them by gazing on the crucifix. Satan does not want us to gaze on the crucifix because he knows it is the sign truth which defeats him.
If you want to encounter Jesus and be healed, here is my challenge. It is both easy and difficult. For 15 minutes a day, every day for 90 days, gaze on the crucifix in this church. If you simply cannot get to church every day, then gaze on the crucifix in your home. If you don’t have one, buy one. I believe your hearts and minds will be changed if you do this.
I challenge you to do this. I challenge you to be healed. Get rid of your impediments. Do it, then come and tell me what happened.
