Be Opened!

Friday, February 14, 2025

Gen 3:1-8; Mk 7:31-37

Today’s Gospel highlights the need for open hearts.

The text presents the healing account of a deaf man by Jesus. 

Like any disability, deafness comes with its pack of difficulties and disadvantages. Being deaf means going through shame and ridicule without possibly knowing it, though it is done in our very presence. 

In comparison, if gossip is about speaking ill of someone absent, deafness is about subjecting someone to shame and ridicule even when the person is present in our midst. 

Jesus heals someone who goes through such agonizing pain on account of his disability. The vivid description is a testament to Jesus’ sensitivity toward someone whose daily life is cursed with disgrace and humiliation, though he/she too has been created in God’s image and likeness. 

By what he does, not only does Jesus manifest his love for him but also recognizes the indwelling presence of God in him. 

Therefore, when Jesus groans in pain on the deaf man’s behalf, ‘Ephphatha,’ it does not only mean that his ears be opened but our hearts too. 

Through his kind gesture, Jesus demonstrates that while those who are well have the duty to praise and thank God, their most important obligation is to become the very members of the disabled, the absence of which has resulted in their disability.

If our hearts are not open to embrace those who suffer from various needs, it is equivalent to not paying heed to the impassioned call of Jesus to ‘be opened.’

Let us pray that through our open hearts, we may recognize the God who resides in all and be their ‘alter’ members when they lack one. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar