HOMILY SUNDAY 23 – B

Be a Miracle Worker through Faith and Love

(Isaiah 35:4-7; Psalm 146; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-17)

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Do you really believe in our glorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? That is the question St. James puts to us in the second reading?

Be a miracle worker: believe in Jesus and love unconditionally.

The Old Testament passages read today provide a prophetic background for the gospel. The messianic promises leap out at us today from the words of Isaiah: Your God will come to save you, the blind shall see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the mute sing for joy and the desert be transformed.

Psalm 146 adds to the promises: The Lord will feed the hungry, set prisoners free, give justice to the oppressed, care for the powerless, and reign for all generations.

Does this sound too good to be true? Not so, proclaims the gospel from Mark. In Jesus, all those promises are fulfilled. The miracle of healing the deaf-mute man has exceptional significance. The words of the crowd He does everything wellrecall Gen 1:31 where God sees all God has made and declares it good. This is a new creation, in Jesus. The words “He even makes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak” allude to Isaiah of the first reading. This is the fruit of this new creation brought about by Jesus.

There is more verification. Mark follows this story with a parallel of Jesus curing a blind man (8:22-26) and the profession of Peter (8:27-30) in which Jesus is acknowledged as the Messiah.This means the age of messianic salvation has arrived with Jesus, and includes the gentiles.The chorus of the Greek crowd signifies the faith of the early Church in Jesus as the fulfilment of prophetic announcement.

But what does that mean for us today? How are we to respond to this “Good News?”

Our response must be more than “astonishment beyond measure” – the strongest statement in Mark about the crowd’s response to Jesus. Being amazed is not yet faith. What Jesus wants is a genuine faith and trust in who he is, Messiah and Saviour, transforming us into committed, caring disciples able to love unconditionally.

While the crowds speak words of praise about Jesus, James in the second reading challenges us to move beyond mere words. “Do we really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” he asks. If we do, we will demonstrate our faith by unconditional love that reaches out to the poor and marginalized, those that we would rather avoid.

St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was an example of one whose faith in Jesus as Messiah and Saviour propelled her into action, reaching out to the poor and homeless of India, and providing them with a comfortable place where they could die with dignity. Grounded in daily contemplative prayer and the Eucharist, she lived it out each day in selfless caring love.

We don’t have to be a missionary living in a foreign land to realize this gospel in our own lives. Those crying out to be loved back into life abound in our own families and communities. The marginalized today can be the youth, the elders, the addicted, the abused, the fearful and the angry. These are the ones Jesus would reach out to today, and can, through us. St. Mother Teresa claimed the poor were not in India – they were the unloved marginalized persons and unwanted unborn children of the developing world.

Sr. Emily was a very timid and shy teacher. She was afraid to go to the staff bathroom at the school where she taught, and had a terrible stutter when she talked. She stayed with a sister who talked all the time, to her canary when alone, and “at” Emily when she was home. Emily hardly ever got a word in edgewise, and when she did, the other sister would cut her off, not aware of what she was doing. In some ways the two of them were a dysfunctional little community.

In 1975, they made a commitment to living a deeper form of Christian community with their pastor that included sharing prayer, meals and an occasional retreat. One of those retreats proved to be a breakthrough for them in terms of spirituality and communication. The Canticle of Zechariah became a prism through which they analyzed their community life, and realized God’s love could make a difference in how they communicated, prayed and lived. The words, “He has come to set us free” took on very personal meaning for them and they experienced some hope and release as they prayed and shared that day.

Then in 1976 both sisters took the Christopher Leadership course and gained some confidence and self-esteem. The following year Sr. Emily took the training to become a Christopher Instructor and gained even more confidence. In 1979 both sisters took a Marriage Encounter, and were blown away by the love of the team and the transformation they saw in the couples. They experienced the power of that weekend in the depth of their own sharing, for the first time really listening to each other and learning about each other. In the end experienced a similar transformation in themselves.

Eventually, Emily became the Assistant Catechetic Coordinator for the whole ministry area. In that capacity she would address groups of people and even led the singing in a large church. Her stuttering disappeared completely – she was a transformed person, healed through Christ’s love for her through shared prayer and effective Christian community.

What about our families? Are we also deaf to the cries coming from the others? Are we also blocked, stuck in anger, blame and denial, mute and unable to communicate with one another? Sometimes that seems to be the hardest task in the world. A young girl once told me, “My father and I live in the same house, yet it feels like we are 10,000 miles apart.”

In the gospel, we see God at work in Jesus, the Son of God. I believe it is love that heals. When Jesus took the deaf/mute man aside, touched his ears and mouth and poured full attention and love towards him, the man was healed. It’s the same with us. When the love of Christ comes to us through our families, our friends, the Christian community, then we are healed, personally and sometimes even physically.

God’s word today invites us to believe in the power of Jesus’ healing love, and to experience that healing love in our relationships and families especially. That is always a challenge. That is why we need the Church and the sacraments to help us. We need to go beyond physical healing to personal healing in faith. That is why Mark has Jesus warn people not to talk about his miracles – he was afraid people would misunderstand, get stuck at the level of physical healing, and just follow him for what they could get out of him.

Jesus stands for more than that. The greatest miracle of all is what Jesus did on the cross – love us totally and unconditionally.  The Eucharist, itself a miracle of faith, makes present for us that total love of Christ through humble gifts of bread and wine. We are called to believe in him, not just as a miracle worker but as one who loved totally and wants to transform us into his Body, also able to heal through unconditional love.

So, have faith in the love of God for you in Jesus, and let your love for others work miracles in your family and community.