A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 4, n. 42)
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – September 10, 2006
“The Healing and Saving Lord”
BIBLE READINGS
Is 35:4-7a // Jas 2:1-5 // Mk 7:31-37
N.B. This new series of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY presents a biblico-liturgical study of the First Reading of each Sunday Mass to serve as background for a better understanding of the Gospel proclaimed in the liturgy. For a biblico-liturgical study of the Gospel for each Sunday, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
When I was assigned in India, I got hold of a very interesting manuscript in Italian. It is a story written by a Society St. Paul priest about Sr. Maria Lucia Bouchet, who is of French-Burmese origin and one of the two first PDDM Sisters in India. When the Japanese invaded Burma at the outbreak of World War II in Asia and the Pacific, Lucia’s father joined the armed forces to fight the enemies and was killed. To avoid the horrors of Japanese occupation, the rest of the family, consisting of seven-year old Lucia, her five-year old brother and her Burmese mother, tried to flee to Calcutta, passing through the jungles of north Burma and the wild, hostile territories of the head-hunting tribal Nagas. In the trek through the jungles, they came across the bodies of thousands of refugees who had died from illness, hunger and sheer exhaustion. The mother, taking them by the hands, plodded through with courage, until she herself collapsed lifeless on an isolated mountain trail. The two children were howling in desperation, sadness and fear, when two strong Naga tribesmen suddenly appeared. Each of them took a child and, with the human cargo slung over their neck and shoulders, walked side by side on the trail. When the trail diverged, the other tribesman took the other path, carrying her kid brother away. The brother and sister screamed for each other. Lucia would never see her beloved brother again. Lucia was so traumatized by the loss of her loved ones, that she became mute that very day. She remained hostage in that Naga family for almost two years, until she was rescued by the British and brought to a children’s refugee camp. Lucia had to participate in the class even though she was mute. One day the teacher was teaching the children the poem “Two Little Brothers Lost in the Woods” and was asking them, one by one, to read the text. Lucia was aghast – she felt that the poem told her own story. The teacher was about to skip the mute Lucia, when the latter stood up and recited the poem in perfect English. Her tongue was loosened! That day was a special moment in her personal healing. Her ability to speak was a sign of inner healing. Young Lucia would eventually meet Blessed Giacomo Alberione in Allahabad, India and enter the religious congregation (PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI) that he founded.
The phenomenon of healing is a wonderful sign of the presence of the saving Lord and the advent of the messianic times. The Old Testament reading (Is 35:4-7a) is an invitation to exaltation because of the coming of the saving God and the eternal happiness that would result from his liberating action. This prophetic passage was written while God’s chosen people were in exile in Babylon. The biblical scholar, Eugene Maly comments: “All seemed lost. The people experienced the absence of God in the misery in which they lived. But our author had firmer convictions. He knew that the saving Lord was no absent God. He knew God was close at hand and that he would soon reveal his saving arm. He expresses this conviction in an outburst that surely cannot be limited to the literal meaning of the words. He is speaking of the end-time when the fullness of the divine healing will be manifest.”
Indeed, the Old Testament author was encouraging those whose hearts were frightened and the people in need of liberation. He was depicting the acts of salvation that the gracious God would accomplish for them as a phenomenon of healing – the healing of the blind, deaf, mute and lame – and as an environmental transformation – the gushing forth of the water in the parched land and the flowering of the arid desert. Harold Buetow remarks: “Today’s passage from Isaiah can be regarded as a commentary on today’s Gospel. Actually, this portion belongs to the Deutero-Isaiah, a part written toward the end of the sixth-century Babylonian captivity, which was long after the great eighth century prophet. The vision, dreamed in the midst of disaster, provided a joyful picture of confidence that new deliverance similar to the Exodus would happen. In highly poetic language that would color the hopes of the Jewish people long after Isaiah described the future return of Israel from captivity. The promise came to be applied to the age when the Messiah appeared.”
Against the backdrop of this Old Testament passage, the Gospel miracle of the healing of the deaf-mute ushers in the coming of the messianic times. The restoration to wholeness brought about by Christ’s compassionate act for a deaf man who had a speech impediment symbolizes the destruction of evil and the intensified presence of the saving and victorious God. Indeed, Jesus’ saving gesture to the deaf-mute is a parable of greater healing and the marvelous sign of new times. The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 5, declare: “The healing of a nameless deaf-mute seems to be a parable for the cure of another deafness and of another speech impediment that only grace can heal … All those who up to the present have been deaf, can now hear his word, confess that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and go into the whole world to proclaim the good news, in their turn, and sing his praises.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION
By Rev. Fr. Edwin Limpiado CSS
Stigmatines
West Sacramento CA – U.S.A.
“People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening.” These lyrics from Simon and Garfunkle’s Sound of Silence lead me to reflect about the current confusion and noise that we have in the world today. Despite the advances in science and technology and the economic progress that we have achieved all these years on the one hand, we seem to have retrogressed not only in our human relations, but also in our relationship with God on the other.
Today’s Gospel talks about Jesus healing a deaf man who has a speech impediment. Aren’t we the same as the deaf man in the Gospel? We too have been exposed to man-made noise, which destroyed our ability to hear Jesus speaking to us. Since we cannot hear Jesus, we cannot open our hearts and speak to Him as well.
Our daily lives have been bombarded with new gadgets ranging from cellular phones, to MP3s, to satellite radios, to plasma TV, to the ear-busting and heart-pounding music coming from powerful component speakers that deafen not only our ears, but also our souls to hear God’s promptings. We multi-task and we end up less attentive to the more essential aspect of life – the care of our souls. Our world has become a din of shouts, of war, and of dissension.
In baptism, the priest or deacon who baptized us touched our ears and mouths that we may receive God’s word and “proclaim his faith, to the glory and praise of God the Father”. This has been re-enforced in confirmation and our sharing of God’s Word and our reception of Jesus’ body and blood in the Eucharist.
The white garment, which we received in baptism, has been stained by our failure to hear and to heed God’s Word. We failed to keep it unstained!
We need God to once again touch, heal and restore our hearing and our ability to speak that have been damaged by human sinfulness and greed. We need God to open our ears to hear Him and to open our mouths to speak to Him. We need to hear God in the cry of the poor and the needy and to be empowered once more to speak God’s consoling words to them.
Jesus’ compassionate act of healing the deaf man shows his particular and concrete love for each one of us. Let us then present our impaired hearing and our inability to speak before the Lord. It is only in acknowledging that our ears and mouths have been impaired by sin that God and only God can bring forth healing.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. What effect does the message of hope and assurance in the Isaiah passage create in us? What are the feelings generated by the promise of the God who saves? Do the acts of healing and images of nature regeneration mentioned in the Old Testament reading give us comfort and consolation?
B. Do we welcome the acts of healing of the Lord Jesus, the saving Lord, in our lives? In what ways are we deaf and mute? Do we allow Jesus to open our ears and loosen our tongues?
C. Do we believe that Jesus wants to cure us of all our infirmities, especially our deafness to his Word and our inability to give him thanks and praise? Are we ready to listen to his life-giving Word and then proclaim his glory and praise before all the nations?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Adapted from Days of the Lord, vol. 5, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993, p. 215-216)
Leader: In your footsteps justice for the poor has bloomed; you say, “Ephphatha”, and ears are opened; you listen: tongues are loosened for your praise; you stretch out your hand, and we are healed.
Assembly: Marvelous are your works, Lord, Master of life!
Leader: You are the joy of your faithful; you hear their cry, you save them. You cure the broken-hearted and tend their wounds. You unbind those who are chained; you open to the captives the door of happiness.
Assembly: Marvelous are your works, Lord, Master of life!
Leader: Let us bless the Lord at all times. May his praise be always on our lips.
Assembly: Marvelous are your works, Lord, Master of life!
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Here is your God … he comes to save you … Then the ears of the deaf will be cleared … then the tongue of the mute will sing.” (Is 35:4-6)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that God may heal our sickness and infirmities, especially our deafness to listen to his saving Word and our inability to give him thanks and praise. Make an effort to participate lovingly in Jesus’ healing ministry for his people.
B. ACTION PLAN: To help us contemplate more deeply and thank the saving God and his healing Lord Jesus Christ, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 2, n. 42): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US