23 Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year II, Cycle B, September 10,2006

Scripture: Isaiah 35:4-7a, Psalm 146:7-10. James 2:1-5. Mark 7:31-37

All of us need to deepen our faith and our trust in God and Sunday is a good day to set aside time for reflecting on this need. In today's Scriptures there is a strong call from the Lord to summon us to work at deepening our faith which is freely given to us by God as a gift, but needs such development if we are to have a trusting and loving relationship with God. While we deepen our faith we see that we are led to turn and help others who are suffering or are oppressed of their human freedom and dignity. Some are in war zones, others in prisons. Then there are the lonely, the sick, the deaf, the blind, and the orphans and widows and widowers. The prophet Isaiah is shouting out that we should remove fear from our trembling hearts and believe and trust in God who is concerned with the poor and the oppressed. Then the healing touch of God will be seen in others and even in the peaceful restoration of nature which has been devasted by war or terrorism. We are quite aware of this with recent wars and with the lasting effects on our own nation from September 11th some five years ago.

Psalm 146 speaks of God and our need to praise God. God is loving, God is kind and merciful. This love is seen in God's concern for the poor, for strangers and for the imprisoned. God will restore to health those who are ill. How? Through our own reaching out to these persons. If our faith is deepened and strengthened as Isaiah call for, then we will be aware of the poor of God and help them wherever we can. Praising and thanking God are ways of deepening our faith and trust in God. The Psalms are prayers that do help us to strengthen and deepen our faith.

St. James always challenges us to put our deepened faith into action for without living out our faith we are simply keeping a superficial relationship with God. We cannot see God with our eyes, but we do see our brothers and sisters who are in need. This is how we see God by seeing in them the image and likeness of our Creator and then doing those things that will truly help them to be treated as God's loved ones. Thus we see God in them and it is then another way of deepening our faith and trust in the All Holy One.

We, like the deaf man, in the Gospel must have our ears of faith opened to the Gospel Jesus is preaching to us through his evangelists. By listening to what we hear in Mark's Gospel--he is the only Evangelist that has this miracle-- we too then are addressed by Jesus and our ears of faith are opened. It is an Ephphatah, that is, "Be Opened" experience. We through our parents and godparents received this opening when we were baptized and the minister or priest said over us Ephphatah as our ears were blessed. That baptismal faith is developed and deepened when we are open constantly toward hearing and doing the will of God through God's holy word. Let us for a moment think about another important verse of John's Gospel which personifies this holy word: "And the Word became flesh (human) and dwelt among us." (John 1:14). Amen.