LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Isaiah 35:4-7
Responsorial psalm: Ps 145(146):7-10
Second reading: James 2:1-5
Gospel: Mark 7:31-37
Link to readings
This week’s readings invite us to celebrate our ‘unbounded admiration’ (Gospel) for the Lord who ‘keeps faith with us for ever’ (Psalm). Our God makes no distinction between classes of people, desiring to nourish us and set us all free. Isaiah (First Reading) has an unshakeable faith in the trustworthiness of God. Such faith allows him to see a future where God’s transforming action will enable the world to evolve to its fruition.
There is a fulfilment of Isaiah’s promise in the Gospel, where Jesus not only heals the deaf man with a speech impediment, but also opens the ears of many to faith, and loosens tongues to spread the Good News of the kingdom.
In the Second Reading, St James tells the young Christian community very clearly that this Good News means God has no partiality according to class or wealth: we are all equally his children. So when Jesus reaches out to the poor and to those on the margins of community life, he brings into focus the kind of world that God desires and continues to long for. The Psalmist’s hymn of praise speaks particularly of the Lord’s concern for the poor, the marginalised, and those regarded as outsiders.
This week, we pray to be open to God’s love – the God who wants to work in and through us, healing and transforming us individually, as communities, and in our institutions.
PSALM 145 (146)
R/. My soul, give praise to the Lord
It is the Lord who keeps faith forever,
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry,
the Lord, who sets prisoners free.
It is the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
who raises up those who are bowed down,
the Lord who loves the just,
the Lord, who protects the stranger.
The Lord upholds the widow and orphan,
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever,
Zion’s God, from age to age. Alleluia!
REFLECTION
I settle my body and mind in my place of prayer. So far as I can, I consciously open my heart and my whole being to the Holy Spirit. I ask God to help me surrender in faith to his loving presence, allowing his divine transformation to touch my inner being.
I read this beautiful psalm of praise slowly, perhaps aloud. I allow its words to deepen, and become my own prayer. I may notice particular phrases that speak of the Lord’s concern for the poor, the vulnerable within the community, the outsiders. I listen to whatever the Lord might have to say to me about this. I notice any interior responses.
The psalmist (like St James in today’s Second Reading) brings into focus the kind of world the Creator wants. I ponder how this vision invites me to live my life in the world today. How might I be an active participant in life itself, and an active ‘co-creator’ with Christ? What is my unique journey to be?
I prayerfully seek the will of God, and the path of love that will lead me to truth and to freedom. I sit silently with the Lord.
With the psalmist, I allow my soul, my most authentic, deepest self, to ‘give praise to the Lord’, the One who loves me and the whole of creation deeply and tenderly.
GOSPEL
Mark 7: 31–37
Returning from the district of Tyre, Jesus went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region. And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it. Their admiration was unbounded. ‘He has done all things well,’ they said, ‘he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.’
REFLECTION
I come to my time of prayer asking for the grace to hear the word of God. I pray that it will speak to me directly, and transform me . . . that God might set me free from any inner and outer deafness that binds me. When ready, I slowly read Mark’s narrative of how Jesus proclaims the Good News to all those he meets on his travels. I ponder this.
As I stay with the text, I ask God to use my senses to help draw me into the scene. Perhaps I use my mind’s eye to walk alongside Jesus as he journeys. Or perhaps I stand with the man with the impediment. I note what moves my heart, and helps an authentic connection with Jesus. I rest with this. It may also be that particular words or phrases within the text draw me to wonder and contemplate. Am I sometimes ‘deaf’ to the Good News of Jesus . . . remaining closed off from his healing love? What ’impediments’ might stop me sharing that love?
I reflect on how I am called to ‘publish’ God’s word in my ordinary daily life . . . to share generously the Good News of God’s love. I pray for the Lord’s healing touch to open me, to restore me, to transform me. I ask for that same courage and fearlessness that Isaiah calls for in today’s First Reading. I listen and surrender . . . and I share all that has arisen with Jesus. I may choose to end my prayer time with today’s psalm refrain: My soul, give praise to the Lord.
Courtesy of St Beuno’s Outreach in the Diocese of Wrexham, UK