Ephphatha: Be Open

“People brought to Jesus, a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged Him to lay His hand on him.”  We were talking a couple of weeks ago about the miracle of the loaves and fishes, of how the miracles are often the signs that Jesus uses to lead us from what is visible to what is invisible.  So, what is the Holy Spirit saying to us, in this Gospel today, of this, Jesus encountering this man who is deaf and mute? And think that back then, it was even much more difficult because they didn’t have the resources that we have today. They didn’t have the very developed sign language, like we have, it didn’t have all the special education, resources, we didn’t have all that technology, which makes it possible, you know, computers, or phones to just type things in to text to do all the images that we have instant access to, so that even if we can’t hear, we can see things, then in many books. Books were very, very rare, or even just paper and a pen to write.  Most people didn’t have that. So, his isolation was much more intense, even much more intense there. So, he is not able to communicate, it’s very hard for him to express what he’s going through, and to hear what people want to share with him. And so, this situation speaks to us of the importance of communication, of the ability to express what we want to express and the ability to hear and understand others. And that’s a problem. Of course, even if without deafness and muteness it’s a problem for all of us, like marriage counselors often say that communication is one of the biggest issues in marriage. And have you ever felt that someone was not listening to you? Have you ever had that experience that someone is not listening for something that that you really want to communicate to them? Has anyone ever told you that you’re not listening? And sometimes, even if the person is listening, it’s very hard for us to express what we want to say sometimes it’s even hard for ourselves to understand what we’re what’s going on, let alone try to help someone else. And then if there’s a language barrier, sometimes that you know, what if we don’t speak the same language that makes it so much more difficult. But it’s not just language, it’s our own attitudes have been affected by our contact with this world, which is the very, and which there’s a lot of bad stuff in our world. So often, we’ve become hardened and guarded, guarded about what we say what we show, careful, suspicious of other people. And sometimes we have to do that for survival because you can’t trust everybody. And so, after we have a sort of, in a sense of phacade that we present to others. And sometimes we may feel we’re being hypocritical, but there’s, it’s not easy to be completely open. But even in the best of circumstances, communication is difficult. Sometimes, even when we try, we can’t express what we want to say. And sometimes the things we want to say maybe they’re even inexpressible. And so, this gospel relates to all of our situations. All of us need someone we can talk to. A lot of times people come and share a problem with me. And I’ll say, Well, is there anyone that you can talk to about this? Anyone that you can speak with easily, because of course, as a priest in a confessional, my time is limited. And sadly, a lot of times people say no, there’s no one I can really talk to about this. It’s such a huge help to have someone that is a good, trusted friend that we can open up to, because there’s some things which are confusing. There’s a lot of things which are confusing, and to be able to have someone to talk to you about it. Even if they don’t have all the answers just talking about it helps us to see it more clearly. That’s a common experience. So, it’s a good thing to know when someone comes to you with a problem. Sometimes just listening, you don’t always have to say anything, just listening helps them. Having someone to talk to helps them to understand and makes it better.  And just the fact of getting things out is a relief for somebody. Even if you don’t have, again, all the answers in fact, that’s one of the… I think one of the most important ministries in the Church, that you don’t need any special diploma for being a good listener. being a good listener, the world needs people who are good listeners. But that means a person that can be trusted. Because some things are very painful. Some things are humiliating and embarrassing. We can’t just share with anybody, maybe we’ve never shared it with anybody. So, we need someone that we can really trust so that we can get that out. Or maybe it’s something on the contrary, very beautiful, very good, very sacred. And we don’t want to profane it by sharing it with someone who’s not going to, not accept it. So often time people have special experiences of the Lord, but they haven’t told anybody, because I think people think I’m crazy. And so, so it’s helpful if we have someone that we can trust someone. So, what does that person need to be it needs to be someone who is really listening. And although listening, but who can understand because sometimes we’re listening, but we still don’t understand. Sometimes the person was really trying to listen, but they still don’t understand.  And also has to be someone who has the time. Like, again, that’s a situation I often face as a priest in a confessional.  There are these difficult situations, but then there’s all these other people waiting or maybe you’re in a situation like a parent, with a large family, it’s hard to have the time.  So, the person has to have the time, and they have to be there. Because maybe it’s a person who has the time, but there’s someplace else. Maybe they’ve been deployed, or their work has called them away or for some other reason. And so even though they will be open, they’re not there. So, it’s hard to find a person that you can really open up to. So, what happens in this Gospel, Jesus took the man off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ear. So, Jesus doesn’t always do this. So, He’s, He’s making something very special. What He’s doing is putting His finger into the man’s ears, and spitting, He touched his tongue. Then He looked up to heaven, and groans, and says, Ephphatha be open.  So, Jesus, in the gospel is emphasizing His miracles, because somebody just says, Jesus cured all the people. But here it’s showing the special acts that Jesus is taking. So, Jesus is emphasizing this in a special way. And in fact, you probably don’t remember when you were Baptized. But this was done to you when you were Baptized. This is part of the rite of Baptism, which the priest touches the ears of the child and their tongue and says Ephphatha be open. So, this was done, at the moment of Baptism, at the moment where you receive Holy Spirit, this was done for each one of us. This following this gospel, giving us the grace and the privilege, to be able to communicate, first of all with God, to talk to God, and to be open to God. So that God is that friend, who understands, even when we don’t understand what we’re trying to say, He understands. You know, sometimes you say something to somebody, and they misunderstand what you said, they take it the wrong way. God never does that. Even when the way you say it is not very well, good. And some people really struggle to communicate, but with God, that’s not a problem. He always understands, no matter how you say it. And the other thing about God, he’s not saying, look, I don’t have very much time for you, because I’ve got lots of other people to take care of. So, I’ve got maybe a minute and a half right now that I can give you and then three weeks from now, I can squeeze you in for another five minutes. What would it be like if God said that right? But He says, I’ve got all the time in the world for you, as much time as you want, I’m always there waiting for you. Who else can say that to you, even people who might want to can’t because they have to do other things? But God is the one person who can give all the time in the world. And not only that, there’s some people who have the time, but they don’t want to dedicate it to you. They want to do something else with their time or give it to somebody else. We’ve all experienced that people aren’t that interested in me. And God has all the time and is always waiting for you. In fact, He’s eager to spend time with you. How many people are eager to spend time with you? It probably wouldn’t take you too long to make a list of those persons, right? God is eager longing to spend time with you. You make Him happy, just by giving Him time. You don’t make everybody happy by giving them time someone might say I wish they weren’t around so much.  But God, you make Him happy just by being with Him. So, He is that special friend. He delights in that contact. Like that’s why He says the Saint Faustina we’ve often quoted this passage. In fact, I think we had in the email last Friday, of how much God likes us to take time to talk with Him. You can say, Well, He already knows what I’m going to say. But He liked just the act of talking to Him, He enjoys that He wants to hear you. He loves you so much, that spending time with you is special for Him. So, think of that, you can make Him happy just by spending time with Him.  So, that’s an opportunity helpful for us, because we need to be able to get things off our chest, to not keep everything bottled up. And as I say, it’s very helpful to have a friend that we can talk to. But nobody can replace God. God is the one that we can always talk to. So, it’s helpful because things build up every day. And so, it’s helpful every day to be able to take time to talk to God. Even if you’re complaining, God’s not expecting you to come. Some people don’t want to hear your complaints, right? A lot of people don’t want to hear your complaints. I’ve got enough problems of my own. I don’t want to hear more problems, but God wants to hear even your complaints. One thing, it’s a sign of confidence, it’s a sign of trust that you can be completely open with Him. Even when the news is bad news. He appreciates that you’ve been open with Him, that you’re not trying to put on a good front that you just think God, this is the way I’m feeling. So, with God, you can be simple, you can be honest, you can be frank, like with nobody else. Again, it’s a sign of your trust in Him. Even when you feel hurt and abandoned by God. There’s a lot of examples of that in Scripture like, in fact, in the in the Word of God, we have a lot of people complaining to God about God. Like Job, or Jeremiah, or the Psalms, these are great, you know, great heroes of God. And they’re complaining to God about God. And even that He appreciates because it’s being honest, He knows how difficult our path is. And He would much rather that we can be honest and say it to Him, then try to pretend by you know, you’re a really nice God and you always treat me well and, and your life is fantastic when we don’t feel like that. So just being honest with Him, Frank, honest with Him like Job. Because prayer should be a place of a time of freedom. There is so much in our society, even in America today, which should be the land of the free there’s so much in our society which is controlled. You can’t say that you can’t express that. You’re not even allowed to listen to that. Our freedom is being taken away. And even in relationships, we have to be careful, right? We learn we have to be careful what we say. Because we say certain things and it causes a big problem. The wrong things saying the wrong things, or the wrong way can cause disasters. So, you have to be careful, but with God, you don’t have to be careful, you can be completely free, you don’t have to worry about that. So, prayer should be a time. So, you know, vocal prayer is good. And like praying the rosary, or the Psalms, and so forth, all of that’s good. But we also need time of which we can just be completely free. and say what everyone is saying to God. So, prayer is a place of freedom, of free communication. So that’s important to be able to talk to God, but also God and this is even more important that God also wants to have a friend that He can communicate to. You know, all of the Bible is about God, wanting to communicate with us, to guide His children, but not just to guide us, above all, to express how much He loves us to share what’s in His heart. If we have something very important in our heart, we want to be able to share with somebody have a special person, we can share that with. God is looking for that person. He wants to reveal to you who you are to Him who you really are to Him how special you are. You know, there’s that young man Samuel, who’s in a temple one night, and here’s someone calling his name, he thinks it’s the priest. And finally, the priest realizes what’s going on to it tells me how to respond. So next time, Samuel that night hears, so this young man hears this voice calling his name. How does he respond? “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” Speak, Lord, I’m listening. That is a fantastic, practical prayer. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. I’m listening. And so, listening to God, sometimes it’s to receive God’s direction, but not just about God’s direction, that’s important. But it’s above all about receiving His love, receiving His the gift of Himself. He wants to reveal how much He loves you. And it’s beyond anything that words could express. There are no words, which can convey how much He loves you. And so, there is a great example of a young woman. Not a young man, but a young woman, Mary of Nazareth, who is open to God. And so, what does God do, He doesn’t just give her a message. He gives Himself. He reveals how special she is to Him. Better than anything that you could have imagined. And He gives Himself. And that’s important because she, of course, is unique. But she’s also revealing to us God is revealing to us there, what He wants to do with each one of us. He wants to reveal to you how important you are and how special beyond you’re imagining you are to Him and how much He wants to give Himself to you personally. So, being open to God is not just about hearing stuff. But it’s about letting God give Himself to you. All human communication is mediated that means it has to be we have to you know, you can’t just will for someone to understand something and they’re going to understand it. We need to use words, gestures, embraces, we can write letters, drawings, music, gifts, there’s different ways, which we use to try to communicate things. And that’s all that’s very rich, but it’s also imperfect. But with God, He doesn’t need any of that. So sometimes He uses words, like we have the words of Scripture uses gestures, but He can communicate even beyond that. And He’s the only one who can do that. He can communicate to you directly to your soul, directly to your heart. And so that’s why silence is so important. And that’s why sometimes we’re listening to God, and we don’t hear anything. Because what’s going on is not words. It’s not even ideas, or images. It’s something so deep, that only the depths of our heart are receiving it. We don’t even realize that at the time. It’s something like a little seed that God has planted or coming like, like a ray of sunshine, that we don’t even realize at the time, because it’s happening so deeply within us. And that communication with God is what begins to build the possibility to be more open and communicate with other people. So last week, I gave some tips I gave seven tips to my homily last week. And so, one tip would be to just take 10 minutes a day, to talk and to listen to God so that He can, so we can unburden ourselves with Him and also so that He can guide us. And so just in conclusion. So, communication is so important, human communication is important. But on this earth, our communication will always be imperfect. No, and Jesus says this St. Faustina, no human person, even a very good person who loves you very much, will be able to fully understand you. Because they’re not you. So, communication is important, but it’s always imperfect. But with God, He is the one we can talk to, with complete freedom. And we can do that every day to take time, and then begin to learn to listen because listening to God, it takes effort, sometimes it takes discipline, to begin to learn little by little to kind of tune out all that other junk, and begin to tune in, we can say like, to the frequency of God, to learn, to how to listen to Him. And so, we can ask our Blessed Mother, who’s our Mother to help us to help pray to the Holy Spirit, to learn to speak, and listen to God. Ephphatha, be open, be open, the Lord is wanting to open us up so that we can speak to Him and that we can receive Him, listen, and receive Him. And so, by that we can also communicate better among ourselves. And then, when we get to heaven, communication will be fantastic, fantastic. No more barriers. Ephphatha. Be open. Amen.