Sunday, September 8th, 2024 – Twenty– third Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle B Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8, Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 4-5, James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

                                                    LEARNING TO LISTEN
      To cure the deaf and mute man, Jesus uses a sacramental pedagogy. He takes him aside, touches him, prays for him, and speaks to him. How we need this miracle repeated today, that our ears may open to hear the Holy Spirit’s inspirations! Our presence in society must transform it, or it is not really a presence. If our world is going badly, it is because there are still many Christians that refuse to see, hear, or speak.
 
Brothers and Sisters:
1. The deaf and mute man is cut-off, locked up in his loneliness. He needs a brother who understands him and helps him to open himself to life’s reality and relationships with others. Jesus is that brother. Only Christ can cure us of our miseries and give us light to walk along the straight paths. “You called me,” we must say with Saint Augustine.        “I called out and you have overcame my deafness. You shone bright and unclouded my blindness. You touched me and I began to desire your peace”.
 
What signs do we perform to show that the Kingdom of God is coming? We are God’s sacrament for our brothers and sisters! Let us repeat Jesus’ same actions by caring for the sick and marginalized. The works of mercy are signs of the Kingdom of God.
 
2. Each day new miracles happen all around us. They are palpable signs of the Messiah’s presence. And we are the witnesses! Through sacramental signs internal miracles become apparent to us: the light of conversion that en-lightens people so that they might live centered on the death and resurrection of Christ, thus acquiring new meaning for their human existence.
 
3. Our lips speak from the abundance of the heart. An Arab proverb says, “Open your mouth only if you’re sure what you are about to say is more beautiful than silence.” Therefore, if speaking to God is something magnificent, it is even more so when listening to him speaking to us in the midst of a silence infused with love.
 
Words are the means of communicating our intimacy to others; we cannot communicate a weak and petty intimacy, but rather a rich and enriching one that leads towards goodness and encourages action. In the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul reveals the process that the transmission of faith follows. Faith enters through hearing, that is, as a consequence of the preaching of the Gospel. In so far as they bear the Word of God, our feeble human words are “living and active, sharper than a double–edged sword.”
 
Brothers and Sisters: In Baptism we have received the vocation to be communicators of the Word of God. Have we already learned to hear it? Saint Thomas defines the apostolate as “handing on what we have contemplated in pray-er.” Let us not betray the contents of the message. We are the living sacrament of salvation through our word and           testimony.
Source: ePriest.com / Best Practices and Homily Resources for Catholic Priests