5 September 2021
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Perhaps you have seen videos online of people with colorblindness trying on color corrective glasses for the first time or videos of babies receiving cochlear implants and hearing their mothers’ voice for the first time. The response is always emotional. There is something beautiful about someone enjoying their senses to the fullest. For those of us able to see and hear, they are reminders of the wonders of life that can so easily be taken for granted.
This is what happens in today’s gospel when Jesus opens the ears of a deaf man who had a speech impediment. People are so amazed and delighted that they can’t stop talking about it in spite of Jesus’ interdiction. If this were to have happened in modern times, and someone would have taken a video of it, it would have gone viral without a doubt!
But while 20/20 vision and perfect hearing are beautiful gifts from God, they are not the end goal of our lives. We may know many people who have difficulty with sight or hearing and yet can see and hear things that most miss, people who sense life with an interior depth that can only come from on high. Those who can sense the Lord in adversity and can, like the Prophet Isaiah, console their brothers and sisters saying: “Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication.”
May the Lord grant us the interior depth to sense and proclaim his presence in our world.