Mother Church invites us to celebrate Sunday, September 08, 2024 as the twenty-third Sunday in ordinary time, year B. In the Entrance Antiphon, we pray: “Lord, you are just, and the judgments you make are right. Show mercy when you judge me, your servant. Amen.
In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah tells us that the return of the exiles, promised by God, will be a new exodus. God will forge a highway through the desert from Babylon to Palestine. Water will be no problem, the desert will gush with springs of water and God’s saving presence will make his sick and crippled people whole again. Their cures will be a sign of his presence among his people.
In the second reading, Saint James tells us that God makes no distinction between various types and classes of people. Whether you are wearing gold-plated clothes or dressed in rags, God loves all those who come to him and opens his heart to us all. We should therefore imitate God by not making any distinction between people in terms of wealth or poverty, ethnic or tribal origins, for we are all children of God. In the Gospel, Saint Mark concentrates on the person of Jesus as God’s Messiah, who opens our eyes, unblocks our ears and loosens our tongue so we too can exclaim: “He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”
In the course of this Eucharist, let us pray for the grace to love all our brothers and sisters, irrespective of their social status, tribe, race or colour of the skin, for we are all children of the same God, who is merciful and full of compassion, especially for the marginalized in society – the orphan, the widow, the blind, the dumb and deaf, and the crippled.
First Reading: Isaiah 35: 4-7.
Say to all faint hearts, Courage! Do not be afraid. Look, your God is coming, vengeance is coming, the retribution of God; he is coming to save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy; for water gushes in the desert, streams in the wasteland, the scorched earth becomes a lake, the parched land springs of water.
Comment
Of all the Old Testament Books, pride of place in the liturgy belongs to the Book of Isaiah. We are told in the Book of Sirach that the prophet Isaiah lived in the time of Hezekiah, king of Judah (716-687), and that “he saw the last things, and comforted those who mourned in Zion”, that is, those exiled to Babylon (Sirach 48: 22-25). Isaiah is often considered the greatest of the prophets. He was born in about 765 BC of a Jerusalem aristocratic family. He received his prophetic vocation in 740 BC and his long ministry spanned a period of over forty years.
In the Christian Bible, the Book of Isaiah is the first of the Major Prophets, not just because Isaiah predates the other writer-prophets but also because his book is the longest and perhaps the most important of all the prophetical books. It is 66 chapters long. The Hebrew Bible also places him first among what it calls the “Later Prophets”, that is, ahead of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the twelve Minor Prophets, namely, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
The Book of Isaiah is also important because it is the Old Testament book that is most quoted in the New Testament. This means that it is the prophetical book that most clearly announces Jesus Christ. As Saint Jerome once remarked, Isaiah is more a Gospel than a prophecy. Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome’s contemporary, also calls Isaiah an evangelist, not a prophet.
The Book of Isaiah covers three distinct periods of Israel’s history. The first part, chapters 1-39, was written by the prophet himself; the second and third parts were written by other prophets when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon and after their return from exile.
The passage of our meditation is a celebration of Zion, the holy city. It presents a picture of the restored Jerusalem. God, who manifested his presence and protection during the exodus, when Israel came out of Egypt, will do so again in wonderful ways as the redeemed flock back home to Zion. He shows them the way and builds for them a highway that will lead them to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. The return of the exiles is a new exodus that is bringing God’s people from Babylon back to Jerusalem. Water is no problem because God makes the desert gush with springs.
The joy of the exiles is intensified by the instant cure of the blind, the deaf and the lame, which anticipates the Messianic age when Jesus will, as he does in the Gospel of this day, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and dumb, and limbs to the infirm. The miracles Jesus works clearly demonstrate that the moment of true redemption predicted by Isaiah and the other prophets has come to pass (Mt 11: 2-6).
What message am I taking from this reading? Our God is full of compassion for all his sons and daughters, especially the marginalized – the blind, the deaf and dumb and those who are physically challenged. He always fulfills his promise to us, curing us of our blindness in faith and soothing our parched souls when we receive Christ in the Eucharist. Christ is the spring of living water flowing from God. Holy Spirit, guide us as we walk towards our heavenly home. Amen.
Second Reading: James 2:1-5.
My brothers, do not try to combine faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord, with the making of distinctions between classes of people. Now suppose a man comes into your synagogue, beautifully dressed and with a gold ring on, and at the same time a poor man comes in, in shabby clothes, and you take notice of the well-dressed man, and say, “Come this way to the best seats”; then you tell the poor man, “Stand over there” or “You can sit on the floor by my foot-rest.” Can’t you see that you have used two different standards in your mind, and turned yourselves into judges, and corrupt judges at that? Listen, my dear brothers: it was those who are poor according to the world that God chose, to be rich in faith and to be the heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.
Comment
As we heard in last Sunday’s reading, the Letter of Saint James is addressed to the “twelve tribes in the dispersion,” in other words, to the Jews living outside the Holy Land. However, the early Christians too came to think of themselves as the New Israel which had, in Christ, inherited all the promises that God had made to his people. The reference to the “twelve tribes in the dispersion” therefore fits Christian churches scattered outside the Holy Land.
The name James was a very common Hebrew name and it is therefore not surprising that there are up to five men called James in the New Testament. However, the author of this letter, who identifies himself as “James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”, is believed to be the James, who is usually referred to as the “brother” of the Lord. After the resurrection, he became the leading figure in the Church of Jerusalem (1 Cor 15:7); and after Saint Peter moved to Rome, he stayed behind and later assumed the position of bishop of Jerusalem. He is thought to be the same person as the James, son of Alphaeus, listed in the Gospel as a Apostle (Mt 10: 3; Mk 3: 18).
In this day’s passage, Saint James calls on us to refrain from discrimination of any sort. He particularly condemns the attitude which presumes that the well-dressed man, who enters the church, naturally deserves more attention and care than the poor man who enters at the same time. If preference is to be made at all, it should reflect the declared preference of God, who chooses those who are poor according to the world, to be rich in faith so as to inherit the kingdom.
Apparently, the Christians to whom this letter is addressed were guilty of discrimination against people on the grounds of social standing. This is a clear instance of inconsistency between faith and actions, a key theme in James’ letter. He makes it clear that God will severely punish discriminatory behavior of any sort. God is not partial and takes no bribe, as we hear in the Book of Deuteronomy (10:17). In the New Testament, Jesus’ strongest adversaries even admit that he is impartial and does not make unfair distinctions (Mt 22:16).
In line with this teaching, the Catholic Church condemns every form of discrimination. In one of their documents, Gaudium et spes, the Fathers of the Church tell us that all forms of social or cultural discrimination in basic personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, colour, social conditions, language or religion, must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design (Gaudium et spes, 29).
What lesson are we taking home from this reading? Discrimination, whether on the basis of wealth, gender, race, skin colour, tribe or ethnicity, cannot, and should not leave the conscience of any Christian indifferent. There is a tendency, even in Christian communities, to discriminate against those who are physically challenged: the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the crippled. God, in the first reading, and Christ, in the Gospel, challenge us to show compassion for this class of people living among us. Let us therefore pray for the grace to treat every man, woman and child as created in the image and likeness of God. As such, we should banish from our hearts and minds anything that would lead to discrimination of any sort. Amen.
Gospel: Mark 7: 31-37.
Returning from the district of Tyre, Jesus went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region. And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, “Ephphatha”, that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it. Their admiration was unbounded. “He has done all things well,” they said, “he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”
Comment
The Gospel of this Mass narrates the cure of a deaf-mute. The Lord takes him apart, places his fingers in his ears and touches his tongue with spittle. Afterwards, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and says to him, Ephpheta (that is, “Be opened”). At once the man’s ears were opened; he was freed from the impediment, and began to speak plainly.
Already in the first centuries of the Church, and throughout many generations, the Church used these same gestures of the Lord at the moment of Baptism, while praying over the one to be baptized: May the Lord Jesus, who made the deaf hear and the dumb speak, grant that at the proper time you may hear his Word and proclaim the Faith.
In this cure, our Lord shows us how he frees man from sin. He opens man’s ears to hear the word of God and loosens his tongue to praise and proclaim the marvelous works of God. At the time of Baptism, as the liturgy proclaims, God frees our hearing to listen to the Word of God, and unloosens our tongue to announce it throughout the world.
The curing of the deaf and dumb is another good indication of how much compassion our Lord has for the sick. He wants them to experience God’s saving power. Through his healing ministry, Jesus manifests the love and benevolence of God. Christ is truly the link between God and man. He comes from the Father to open the way to him for us. He is the way to the Father. As he himself says it: “I came not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me” (Jn 6:38).
Jesus’ openness to God and his love of humanity are manifested by word, deeds and miracles. We too must ask ourselves if we are not blind to the Gospel. Do we let Jesus open our eyes to see God’s love for us? Are we not deaf to God’s Word and do we hear his message of love of neighbor? Are we not dumb because we prefer lie-telling to the truth? Are we not lame and paralytic because we do not thank and praise Christ for enabling us to tread on the path of salvation?
When Jesus cures the deaf and dumb, people marvel at him and pronounce the verdict: “He has done everything well”. He brings healing to men’s bodies and salvation to their souls.
Commenting on this passage of the Gospel, Saint Augustine says that the tongue of someone who is united to God will speak for the good, will bring to agreement those who are divided, will console those who weep. God will be praised, Christ will be announced. These things we will do if we have our hearing attentive to the continuous inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and if we have our tongue ready to speak of God, uninhibited by human respect.
There are many of us whose ears are closed to the Word of God and who are insensitive to the innumerable invitations of grace. And how do we help people whose ears are closed to open up to God’s Word? This calls for patience, understanding and persistence in prayer. That is how we will make many of our friends hear the voice of God and be themselves converted into new apostles who will speak of him everyday.
We Christians have the obligation to speak of God and transmit his message openly. Parents must teach their children prayers and the basic doctrines of the Catholic Church. Friends must speak to friends about God, offering them, by the example of their Christian lives, a cheerful model to imitate. The Lord has also opened our lips and loosened our tongues so we can speak about the wonders of his works in clear, simple language for all to understand.
In the Most Blessed Virgin, we find the perfect model of one who listens with attentive ear to what God is asking. She always answers affirmatively to God’s call. Let us go to her and ask her to teach us how to listen attentively to everything that comes from God and put it into practice. Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, teach us to listen to and hear the words of your Son as he sends us on mission to our families, to our Christian communities, to our parishes and the city of Douala as a whole. We make our supplication through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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