Sermon for the 11th Sunday After Pentecost
Mass at St. Monica Parish
Introduction
“The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.” These are the words that the priest pronounces at the baptism of an infant, evoking the scene of the Gospel reading for this Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Deafness in the Bible is seen as a metaphor for spiritual deafness, those who refuse to listen to the word of God. An infant, of course, is not able to understand what it hears or able yet to speak, and so the priest prays that God might give these spiritual gifts to the child just as our Lord restored hearing and speech to the deaf-mute.
God’s Plan of Salvation
It is a curious fact that this miracle of the healing of the deaf-mute is only recounted in the Gospel of St. Mark. In doing so, Mark intends something greater than this already great act of mercy toward this man in need. Notice what he tells us: “Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis.” This means that he traveled north, then east, and then south to arrive at this area of the Ten Cities, that is, he passed through pagan territory on his way to Jerusalem. Which means, then, that rather than going directly to the east to get to Jerusalem he went way out of his way precisely in order to be with people different from himself, outside of his own group, that is, outside of the Chosen People of God; he went to where no one else of his group wanted to go. And then he works miracles for these people who are not of his own clan.
What we see here, then, is an opening up in God’s plan even beyond what the people had imagined. This is the vision of a community of disciples that moves beyond the bounds of its own culture, confronting human suffering and alleviating it for those who are in its grasp with the healing balm of God’s love and mercy. The disciples bring the Gospel message to those who until then were spiritual infants, that is, unable to hear the word of God because there was no one to teach it to them.
What Mark is doing here, in recounting these miracles in his version of the Gospel, is presenting Jesus as the model of the Church: a Church in mission beyond the bounds of any particular culture in which she finds herself, fulfilling the proclamation of the Gospel especially by confronting human suffering and alleviating it for those who are in its grasp.
The Church in the World Today
We see this realized in the world today: the Church consists of people of all nations on the face of the earth, all cultures and languages. We see it in miniature in our own Archdiocese, as San Francisco has always been a destination of immigrants from countries all over the world seeking a better life. The Church, though, is not an international organization; rather, the Church is universal. That is to say, the Church has given a common culture to all of her children, while at the same time respecting the particular cultures from which they come. It is a common culture which helps the members of the body of Christ to live according to our one, common belief which we have received from our Lord and his been handed down by the Church in every generation.
Like all cultures, the Church speaks in a common language. That language, of course, is Latin, which is why the Second Vatican Council called for Latin to be preserved in the liturgy even as it allowed some use of the vernacular. Latin is our common Catholic heritage, which unifies us from different races and languages, and gives its musical expression in the form of Gregorian chant and polyphony, which the Council also called to be preserved and promoted. The common language of the Catholic Church, though, goes beyond language in this literal sense: the Church speaks with a sacramental language, that is, the Church sees how physical reality mediates the spiritual reality beyond it. We have the sacraments in the Church, but we also see spiritual messages in physical reality in all kinds of ways, such as how the physical trait of deafness teaches us a lesson about those who are spiritually deaf to the word of God.
In this sense, the Church speaks sacramentally also by her acts of charity. Sharing the love of Christ means much more than giving to those who are in need; it means investing ourselves in the gift, such that both give and it becomes an encounter with Christ himself. That is why, unique to our Christian tradition, throughout our history great saints with claims to wealth and nobility have divested themselves of it not only to help the poor, but to actually be poor with the poor. Again, confronting human suffering and alleviating it for those who are in its grasp is how we put the Gospel into action.
Gospel Received
That Gospel which we put into action is not one that we make up, or that we compose ourselves; rather, it is received, just as St. Paul tells us in his First Letter to the Corinthians: Now I am reminding you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received”; and also, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received”. There are some who would like to change the Gospel we have received, the Gospel that the Church has handed down in each generation from the time of the apostles until today. But that does not bring us to the life of heaven.
What, on the other hand, is the result of receiving the Gospel as it has been handed down to us? For that, we can look to the example of St. Paul: it is repentance, which opens us up to the life of God. St. Paul speaks here in his First Letter to the Corinthians about his sinful past: he had persecuted the Church of God, but receiving the full truth of the Gospel and opening his heart to the love of God revealed in His Son Jesus Christ made him painfully aware of his sins and yet, at the same time, filled him with peace, hope and confidence. This is the same St. Paul who suffered severely for the sake of the Gospel: beatings, shipwreck, betrayal, and, in the end, suffering martyrdom by beheading for adhering faithfully and completely to the Gospel which he received and handed on to others.
What was true for St. Paul is true for us. We live in times of uncertainty, of great confusion, a time when many people are filled with fear for their future. The worst thing we could do to ourselves in such a situation would be to turn our backs on the Lord, pretend as if he is pleased when we live how we choose to without regard for what he teaches us. He has given us a great treasure in the Gospel we have received, as the Church has handed it down to us and enriched it with her great patrimony of teachings and worship and the arts and service to the poor with the love of Christ himself.
Conclusion
Receiving the Gospel with an open and faithful heart brings us the peace, hope and confidence we need in uncertain times such as our own. That is because it gives us assurance that we belong to a much bigger family, the family that is our fellow believers united in the universal Church, the body of Christ all throughout the world, and even beyond that: we already share communion with those who have gone before us in faith and now worship God face-to-face. May they intercede for us at the throne of God, that our ears, minds and hearts may be open to His word, and we may live it faithfully through the love we share with others, especially those most in need. May God give us this grace. Amen.
