The Asian Bishops (9th FABC) who gathered in Manila in August of 2009 ended the conference with a challenge to the clergy to make the Eucharist a “transformative event” for Catholics. The source of this power to transform, as the bishops intimated, is the Word of God being listened to devoutly by the faithful and proclaimed relevantly by preachers in the Eucharistic celebrations. Simply put, the call is for priests and catholic families to listen to the Word of God and to proclaim it in a relevant and nourishing way. These two complimentary acts of listening to and proclaiming the word of God can “bear the fruits of renewal.”
The acts of listening and proclaiming are the very acts that a person who is deaf and mute cannot possibly do. A deaf person cannot hear. He can’t listen. A mute person cannot speak. He cannot proclaim. Almost always, a deaf person since birth has problem speaking too. This gives us an insight into the relationship of listening and proclaiming the word of God: We can proclaim only what we have listened to.
Today’s gospel describes how Jesus heals a man who is deaf and mute. Jesus puts his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touches his tongue; Looking up to heaven says aloud, “Ephphatha!” (Be opened!). And the man’s ears are opened, his speech impediment removed (Mk 7:33-35). My intention is not so much to comment on the detail of Jesus’ action as to point out the significance which the evangelist Mark gives to this narrative. For Mark, the miracle is a reminder of Jesus’ ministry to the gentiles and therefore a validation of the ministry of the early church among the gentiles. This is the point of Mark: Like the gentiles, the man is both deaf and dumb towards God. Once the good news is proclaimed to him, however, his ears are opened to the word and his tongue is loosed to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.
We need to reflect too on the import of this narrative to the people of today—to us. In what sense are we like the deaf and mute person of the narrative? In what ways are we unable to listen to God’s word and, hence, not capable of proclaiming it? Or to put it in another way, relating it to the call of the Asian Bishops, what are the challenges we are facing today that hinder us from truly listening to the word of God and proclaiming it effectively and relevantly for the renewal of our communities?
Let me suggest three challenges, three trends without promising to be exhaustive: Today we tend to be 1) activity-driven; 2) electronic technology driven; and 3) consumption driven.
Activity-driven. We always seem to be very busy. We spend all our days moving from one activity to another, accomplishing one project to another. Beating deadlines. We become addicted to achievements. We somehow tend to believe that our worth as a person is in “doing.” No more time for “being.” No more time to be still and to listen to God’s word. Much less, to proclaim it in words and deeds. No wonder, many of what we do end up as self-centered, misguided, conventional achievements that bloat our ego but have no prophetic power to change the ills of our communities. Too much of disoriented activities. Less and less of discernment. Despite the amount of energy we spent, we have not served!
Electronic technology driven. We have too much data to process. Too much information—from text messages, from emails, facebook, twitter, favorite websites, netflix, video scandals, video games, endless sites on pornography and what have you. Information come and go. We are a generation with so many distractions that we can hardly focus on the essentials. We are losing our capacity for depth and our capacity to enjoy relishing something of beauty and of value. We settle for what is fleeting and superficial. Thus, we no longer appreciate the depth and beauty of the word of God ever ancient, ever new. No wonder our lives are shallow. Despite so many data and information, we lack understanding; we lack wisdom.
Consumption driven. This consumerist society of today would have us find the meaning of life in “having”-- to have more and more of things… more shoes, more shirts, more cellphones, more of everything that is advertised. A modern credo captures this trend, we read this sometimes on a bumper sticker: “I shop, Therefore I am.” In this consumerist trend, our capacity to listen is exercised on the endless TV advertisements. What guide our lives are no longer the truth of the Word of God but the subtle lies of advertisement and the lure of possession that we listen to day after day. Our capacity to discern is reduced to making choices among leading brands of shampoo for instance and among new fashionable gadgets that become obsolete in a year or two. And we simply become deaf to the interior promptings of the Holy Spirit--the gentle invitation of God to choose him rather than created things. Despite so many things that we possess, our life is empty!
We are like the man in today’s gospel—deaf and mute—in many and varied ways. If we Christians continue to be so, Christianity loses its power to lead people to conversion, to renew families and communities and to transform our nation because like everybody else we would just settle with the frivolity of what is conventional, superficial, and fashionable. Like the deaf and mute in today’s gospel, we need an “ephphatha experience.” We need God’s grace to open up our ears and lips for us to listen to his Word most devoutly once again and proclaim it convincingly in words and in deeds.
The message of the Asian Bishops may have been Spirit-inspired—inviting all of us to make our Eucharistic celebrations as transformative events for our lives by giving attention to the Word of God. Let us become contemplative listener of His Word. Only then we can become effective proclaimer of the good news both by our lips and our lives. We can only proclaim what we have heard.
“Lord, open my ears and loosen my tongue to hear you and proclaim your goodness in a complacent society that wants to settle only for what is conventional, superficial, and fashionable.”
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