Fr. Michael Williams

The miracles that Jesus performs always point to His authority over life and death; they point to His Resurrection. Our Lord’s miracles are signs that He has power over all things. We know from the gospels that Jesus healed many people from all sorts of different ailments and diseases. These healings reveal that Jesus has authority over all things, even sickness and death. Every miracle that He carries out points toward His Resurrection, which is the ultimate manifestation of His power over death.

When Jesus gave the command in today’s gospel, “Be opened!”, the deaf man’s “ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened”. Jesus reveals His power to heal. Our Lord gave this man the gift of being able to listen and the gift of being able to speak. This miracle, and all His miracles, show us that Jesus is the Lord of life, the Lord of the Universe.

Our Lord’s healing miracles point to something deeper. They point to His authority over all things. Not all people are healed physically. But the important thing is that they are willing to put their trust in the Lord who will bring them through death into the new life the Resurrection.

Jesus healed physical and mental suffering, but He also endured it to an incredible degree through the cross. The suffering people endure in this life can be an imitation of Christ, who also suffered. But Our Lord’s suffering and death was not the end. It was the gateway into eternal life. As St Paul says, “If in union with Christ we have imitated His suffering and death, we shall also imitate Him in His Resurrection”.

Through our baptism we are immersed into the mystery of Christ’s life, which will involve suffering, death and finally Resurrection. Even the deaf-mute who was cured in today’s gospel would have to go through these things to reach eternal life. The miracle He received from Christ was the sign of a greater miracle He would receive in the future- the Resurrection.

Whenever a child is baptised in the Church, there is an optional prayer which can be said for the child. The prayer is this: “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”.

We too need to have our ears opened by Christ so that we receive His word, which tells us that He has overcome sin and death and won for us eternal life. And then we need to have our tongues loosened by Christ so that we will share this Good News with others.

Notice that the gospel says “they brought Him a deaf man”. Other people brought him to Christ. Let us pray that we will bring others to Christ, so that He can heal them by opening their ears to receive His word and loosen their tongues to proclaim the faith, “to the praise and glory of God the Father”.