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September 30^th 2018. Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 9:38-43, 47-48

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL Mark 9:38-43, 47-48

At that time, John said to Jesus,
"Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us."
Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.
Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink
because you belong to Christ,
amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.
"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,
it would be better for him if a great millstone
were put around his neck
and he were thrown into the sea.
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.
It is better for you to enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna,
where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'"

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The disciples are upset because someone is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. But they ignore the fact that this person is doing good and instead object to the fact that he does not belong to their special “club”. Exclusivity is a common problem in religious circles. We insist that people conform to certain conditions before they can belong to our elite group. People get a sense of belonging and a sense of identity by membership in groups that exclude others. Adolescents sometimes do terrible things in order to belong to a certain group or to show public conformity to a certain ethos. Jesus condemns this behaviour in very strong terms. The language he uses is paradoxical because that is how the Semites communicate things. The Bible is a complex work that requires a refined level of interpretation. It is not to be read in simplistic, superficial or fundamentalist terms. Jesus does not want us to pluck out our eyes, cut off our hands or chop off our feet. But he wants to tell us that it would be preferable to lose a limb or an eye rather than lose one of our brothers or sisters. The Holy Spirit leads to communion, not to exclusion. In fact, Jesus not only lost a hand, foot or eye but had his whole body nailed to the cross in order to bring all people into loving communion with his heavenly Father.

In the first reading Joshua does not want people prophesying unless they belong to the right “club”

In the first reading for Sunday, Moses is instructing the seventy elders, imparting his wisdom to them because he has arrived at the point where he can no longer govern. Two of the elders are absent. In fact, they are in the camp prophesying to the people. Joshua, who will one day become a great leader, is still immature and is jealous of the fact that these men are prophesying without proper authorisation. He asks Moses that they not be allowed to continue prophesying in this irregular fashion. But Moses replies that he wishes that everyone could be prophets, that everyone could be possessed by the Spirit of God! This reading evokes the theme of exclusion, the theme of the closed clique or elite inside circle, a phenomenon that often finds a home in religion. The sense of “them” and “us” can be very strong in religious circles.

Jesus uses harsh language that refers to cutting off one’s limbs. Of course, this is not to be taken literally, but it is a powerful way of delivering a clear message

How does Jesus face this issue of exclusion? He uses paradoxical language: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, for it is better to enter into life with one hand only than not to enter at all. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off, etc.”. Evidently we are not to take these sayings literally. The Semites use paradoxical language to communicate, and if we are not able to interpret this type of language properly, then it would be better that we not open the Bible at all. The Bible is a refined piece of writing and it cannot be understood in a superficial or fundamentalist manner. Why then does Jesus say that we are to cut off our limbs or pluck out our eyes? The disciples have found someone who casts out demons in the name of Jesus, and they want to stop him because he is an outsider who does not respect “copyright”. The problem is not that he is casting out demons but rather that he is not part of their “club”. But this man is casting out the devil and defeating evil! He is doing genuine good! When we allow form to be more important than substance, as the disciples are doing in this instance, then we get ourselves into difficulty. The disciples wish to impede this man’s behaviour until it conforms with the rules. And it is this that prompts Jesus to begin his very severe discourse.

The Holy Spirit is always directed towards communion

Christianity can sometimes become something which is divided up along bureaucratic lines. If the apostles already had this difficulty back then, just think what we have to deal with in our time! It often happens that we fail to see the beautiful things that are happening because we are so fixated with the rules of belonging to the club. We are fascinated by membership in something that is exclusive. It can give a feeling of belonging to isolated individuals. Also, it gives a sense of identity that distinguishes me from others. Adolescents can do terrible things in order to belong to a certain group, in order to be recognized by the group. Jesus has no soft words for this kind of behaviour. The Holy Spirit is love and is always directed towards communion, the diametric opposite of exclusion. The Holy Spirit is the essential element in our interior lives and in the life of the ecclesial community. The logic of the Holy Spirit, which is love and salvation, works always towards inclusion. Remember the attitude of Jesus in going to search out the lost sheep and bring it back to the Father?

Everyone is so precious to Jesus that he would cut off hands feet and eyes in order to save them. In fact his entire body was nailed to the cross so that everyone might be brought into communion with his heavenly Father

In this passage that we read from the Gospel, the word “scandal” appears many times in the original version. This word does not refer to some sort of news that cause gossip in society but rather refers to that which causes opposition. A scandal is that which creates division and opposition. That which tends to cause inclusion is often inspired, but that which excludes is generally suspect in nature. Rather than exclude someone, we should be ready to pluck out our eyes. Rather than pushing someone away and saying, “You are not one of us!” it would be better to cut off our hands. Before taking the pathway that would lead someone to think that they are not worthy of salvation, we should be ready to cut off our foot. It would be better to tie a millstone around our necks and throw ourselves in the sea. This is paradoxical language because it is the Gospel. Every brother and sister is so precious to Jesus that he not only cut off a hand or a foot, but gave his entire body on the cross to save that brother or sister. We must never encourage attitudes that lead to factions or exclusion. Rather, we must allow ourselves be led to ever greater communion by the Holy Spirit.

September 23^rd  2018. Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Mark 9, 30-37

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL: Mark  9, 30-37

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee,
but he did not wish anyone to know about it.
He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.
They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Jesus teaches his disciples the fundamental Paschal mystery: he must be handed over to be killed, but he will rise again after three days. The disciples do not understand, but still do not bother to ask the Lord to explain. We prefer not to enter into the crux of life! We prefer to remain on the surface and live our Christianity in a superficial way. This is highlighted by what happens next: the disciples start to argue about which of them is the greatest! Jesus is telling them about the life that comes through the cross, but they are fixated with the “life” that comes from their own egos! The glory we obtain from being “greater” than others is shallow and limited compared to the glory of the children of God that comes from following Jesus. In response, the Lord places a child in the midst of the disciples and embraces him. This gesture of welcome is the key to the faith. In fact, the word “welcome” is repeated by Jesus four times. We must welcome what the Father is sending us. We must embrace it and value it. The key to the Christian life is not our activities and initiatives but our openness and welcome of the crosses that God sends us.

Jesus teaches his disciples the fundamental message of the Paschal mystery

This Sunday, Jesus imparts some private teaching to his disciples. “The Son of Man is to be  handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.” This is a fundamental description of the Paschal mystery. It is the central reality of the mission of Christ. And what a dark and terrible revelation it is. He is to be handed over to men and killed. But the message also contains the statement that he will rise after three days. Life is not about avoiding problems but encountering God through those very problems; to discover the power of God in the absurd and to find the fullness of life in the very place where life seems to have been taken away. When our hearts are ready to receive this message then what a difference it makes to our lives. Everything becomes much more constructive and a moment of growth.

The disciples do not understand Jesus, yet they do not bother to ask him to explain. Too often our wisdom is of a superficial sort. We skate along on the surface of life and understand things in a trivial way. We do not want to enter into the deep nature of things, which is best understood from the perspective of someone who is committed to following Jesus in an authentic way

The disciples did not understand these words but they were afraid to question him. It is normal for a disciple not to understand, but at that point we would expect him to ask the Lord for clarification. The disciples do not want to question Jesus, and this is the great problem of our relationship with the wisdom of God. We prefer the superficial; we prefer to remain on the threshold of things not understood. Without any doubt, one of the gravest problems we have in the Church nowadays is the problem of the formation of consciences, the theme of bringing people to an adult life as children of God. Often our “wisdom” is instinctive and uncultured, not rooted in the faith of the Church and mature discipleship. We are not talking about erudition here. Rather, it is the contrast between being cultured in human terms and being cultured in the Paschal mystery, in things that lead us to the resurrection. Instead we skate along on the surface of Christianity, relating to the elements of the faith in a sentimental way, attached to immature devotional habits. This kind of faith does not cause us to enter into the central crux of life, which is death, and a love stronger than death which is able to confront the void. The disciples are afraid to question him because they do not want to cross that threshold. We do not want to admit to the Lord that perhaps this negative thing is a grace for me, a moment of growth and development, a place in which I can become my authentic self.

The mentality of the disciples is rooted in this world. They seek glory from their own egos instead of the glory of the children of God that comes from following the Lord.

In the second part of the Gospel reading, we see the mentality of the disciples. When they arrive at the house in Capernaum, Jesus asks them what they were arguing about. The trivial nature of their discourse is to be expected. They did not want to question him and they returned to the banal level of this world, to the logic of mundane things and the preoccupation with our own works. As the book of Ecclesiastes says, all the works of man on earth are nothing but envy. The disciples on the road have been infected with envy and competitiveness. They have been asking themselves who among them is the greatest at the very time that Jesus is speaking of giving his life and rising again! We do not want anything to do with this particular way of finding life! Our question is: “Who is the greatest?” We seek glory from our ego, our individualistic search for dignity, our attempts to steal glory from others, whereas the glory of the children of God is given by God. The glory and the advantage that we acquire by placing ourselves over others is very limited and small!

Jesus places a child in the midst of the disciples and embraces him. This gesture of welcome is the key to the faith. In fact, the word “welcome” is repeated by Jesus four times. We must welcome what the Father is sending us. We must embrace it and value it. The key to the Christian life is not our activities and initiatives but our openness and welcome of what God sends us.

Confronted with this mentality, Jesus places a child in the midst of them. This is the elite group of disciples that has been especially elected by the Lord and he places a child in the centre of them! At that time, there would have been much less respect for children than is the case now (at least in theory). Children would have counted for little then, but Jesus took the child and embraced him. What is the meaning of this affectionate paternal embrace? “He who welcomes one of these little ones welcomes me, and he who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”. The verb “to welcome” is repeated four times in this sentence. Jesus’ act of embracing the child is a gesture of welcoming him. “Welcome” is the action that is the key to the faith. Many people, even inside the Church, continue to emphasize their own capacities, their own initiatives, the creativity of humanity, completely lacking in any transcendent element. They organise projects for the youth and include things that have no connection with the faith. Such efforts are nothing more than banal human techniques. The key to new life, rather, is to welcome reality and its cross with open arms and appreciate it for what it is. This, in the end, is more creative than some of the strange pastoral methods that we attempt. We must welcome what God is sending us and value it. We must learn to welcome the power of the liturgy and the word that the Father is sending us.

September 16^th 2018. Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 7:31-37

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL Mark 8:27-35 

Jesus and his disciples set out
for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way he asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that I am?"
They said in reply,
"John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others one of the prophets."
And he asked them,
"But who do you say that I am?"
Peter said to him in reply,
"You are the Christ."
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days.
He spoke this openly.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples,
rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."
He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Peter recognizes that Jesus is the Christ but he does not accept that Christ should suffer. Jesus severely reprimands him: “Get behind me Satan! You do not think according to God’s ways but according to human ways”. When Jesus tells Peter to get behind him, he is simply asking Peter to follow him. He is saying, “You must follow me. I will not follow you.” Jesus asks us to follow him, to renounce ourselves and take up our crosses. When we follow ourselves, then we make our own thinking into an absolute. This thinking might well seem very rational, but it leads to the horrors of history like Auschwitz. How different life would be if we followed the Lord and took up the crosses that come our way! Then life would be beautiful and sublime. The first reading from Isaiah speaks of a person who opens his ear to listen to the Lord, and this enables him to accept life’s tribulations with serenity. The first enemy that seeks to prevent us from following the Lord is the great god of our lives: our own ego. When we learn to say “No” to ourselves then we are enabled to come out of ourselves and enter into love. The house that we must always seek to escape from is that of the absolutisation of ourselves. The cross of coming out of ourselves is not imposed on us. Jesus invites us to “take it up” - an expression which highlights that it should be embraced freely and valued as a gift that leads to growth and self-detachment. Once we abandon ourselves, then we begin to think according to the logic of God. We begin to acquire true wisdom.

When I humbly open my ear to the Lord, then I am able to accept the trials that life sends me.

The opening lines of the first reading sound a little strange: “The Lord opens my ear that I may hear. I have not offered resistance nor turned away. I gave my back to those who beat me. I did not shield my face from insults and spitting”. What is the connection, though, between the Lord opening my ear and me not turning away from the difficulties of life? This expression regarding the opening of my ear is a fairly common term in the Old Testament and refers to the capacity to listen well. In everyday life, we also say things like, “Open your ears to what I’m saying! Hear me well!” When the Lord opens my ear and I manage to welcome what he is saying to me, then I accept the tribulations that come my way. Later on the text from Isaiah says, “The Lord comes to my aid and for this reason I will not be shamed”. When I am attuned to the Lord then I do not descend into the embarrassment of what I am when I am alone, left to my own devices, incapable of true freedom. When I am receptive to what the Lord is saying, then I live like a prince or princess. Because I have opened my ear to the Lord, the wisdom of the Lord has entered into me and permits me to live well that which comes my way.

Jesus asks Peter not to think in worldly terms but in Godly terms. When we make our thinking an absolute and cut it off from God, then we end up constructing concentration camps and the other horrors of human history

In the Gospel, Jesus reprimands Peter very severely: “You do not think as God does but as human beings do!” How can we make the transition from thinking according to the logic of this world to thinking according to the logic of God? How can we pass from the mediocre to the sublime, to thinking like children of God? Let us consider the Gospel. Peter has one piece of information correct: Jesus is the Christ. But he scolds Jesus for not being the kind of Messiah that he wants him to be. The Christ is the one sent by God and the fulfilment of the promises. But when Peter hears Jesus talking about suffering and pain, he cannot comprehend it. The notion of resurrection does not enter into his head. All he can see is the scandal of suffering. This prompts Jesus to respond to Peter with the shocking reprimand of calling him “Satan”. Peter’s error is to think according to the logic of humanity. So the Lord takes him apart and puts Peter behind him, saying “Get behind me Satan!” Peter is not to set the direction in which the Lord is to go. Jesus is saying, “It is you who must follow me. I will not follow you”. This is a serious instruction by the Lord. If we want to come to the Lord, then we must follow him. If we want to attain true life, the life that goes beyond death, then we must follow him. If human intelligence makes itself an absolute value, and does not follow the Lord, then we create the foundations of everything of which we have been witnesses in recent centuries. We set the foundations of Auschwitz, the Russian gulags, all of the horrors of history where human ideas count more than life, where such ideas are made into absolutes and we follow them more than Providence.

We cannot come out of ourselves and enter into love unless we learn to abandon ourselves and our egoistic preoccupations

The words of the Lord, “Get behind me!” is actually a call to Peter to follow Jesus. True life involves this following of the Lord, not imposing our own rhythms on things. And if we wish to follow the Lord then we must be open to the discourse of the Lord, the discourse of providence. Once we put ourselves behind Jesus, then we begin to affront the true kernel of human life. “If anyone wishes to follow me, then he must renounce himself”. The first enemy that seeks to prevent us from following the Lord is the great god of our lives: our ego. The original meaning of “to renounce oneself” means to say “No” to something that I had previously assented to. Some psychotherapists says that mental equilibrium requires a disassociation from one’s own ego. One cannot come out of oneself and enter into love without learning to abandon oneself. The house that we must always seek to escape from is that of the absolutisation of ourselves.

The cross is not imposed on us. We are invited to take it up as something positive that leads to growth and detachment.

Then, once we renounce ourselves, we are to “take up our crosses and follow him”. The term “to take up” does not imply submission or imposition. Rather it indicates the positive action of reaching out for something. The cross is something that we are to value. We accept the sufferings that come with our mission in life, and we transform them into virtues. We do this by the grace of God because we know that our Lord is the one who brings life from death, consolation from suffering. We use and value the cross, aware that it leads to growth, that it represents the moment of abandonment and faith. It also represents love because we know that the one who has loved us has done so through the cross, through a sacrificial offering for our benefit.

If I follow Jesus, then I take up my cross and renounce my own ways of doing things. Thus, I begin to think according to the logic of God and I attain true wisdom

Jesus adds, “He who wishes to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake and for that of the Gospel, will save it”. How many lives do we have? We have one only and we must lose it in order to find the life that is real! In following Jesus, we take up the cross and renounce our egos; thus we lose our introverted system of living, and, behold, we discover that we are entering into beauty; we enter into life, into the sublime; and from that point forward we begin to think according to the logic of God. Thus, from this experience of abandoning ourselves and focusing on being open to Providence, to the vicissitudes of life, we arrive at new life, and we become truly wise.

September 9th Sunday Gospel reflection

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September 9^th 2018. Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 7:31-37

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

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.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The deaf mute in the Gospel represents each one of us. We are all is a state of isolation, in a state of being unable to enter into communion with those around us. How does Jesus heal him? There are four stages. Firstly, he takes the man away from the crowd. We too must be taken away from the crowd, from worldly things, from empty things, if we are to be healed of our sicknesses. Secondly, he places his hands in the man’s ears. The hands of Jesus are the hands that created the heavens! We need to have the hands of Jesus in our ears! In other words, we need the grace to comprehend how the hand of God is working in everyday things around us. We need to be attuned to this action of God. Thirdly, Jesus puts saliva on the man’s tongue. This represents the word of God on our tongue. If we are to be healed of our loneliness and isolation, we need to have the word of God on our mouths. Fourthly, Jesus looks towards heaven and says, “Be opened!” In looking towards heaven, Jesus is looking to his heavenly Father. This relationship is the basis of everything that Jesus does. We too, if we are to be healed of our loneliness, must look to the heavens. We must look away from ourselves and enter into relationship with Jesus and the Father.

We need a champion to enable us to break free from our state of blindness and see the light of God

The first reading from Isaiah speaks of the vindication of God. The word “vindicate” is a little surprising. How can the work of God in humanity involve vindication? The word “redeemer” in Hebrew referred to a member of the tribe whose job it was to exact revenge for the offences received. He was an exacter of justice in terms of blood. The tribe was only as strong as its champion or “redeemer”. These archaic categories are no longer acceptable to us, but they bear a symbolism that throws light on the person of Christ. His mission involves doing an act of vindication as well, but not a vindication against persons. Rather, it is a “vengeance” of a more profound type. We live in a fundamental state of injustice. When the prophet Isaiah announces this act of retribution, he speaks of the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf being opened. In the Gospel, in fact, Jesus heals a deaf mute, and in this action we behold the vindication of God. The Lord gives to this man the thing that he truly needs; to see the light. Each one of us needs to see that light, to experience the love of God, to have our hearts visited by grace. This is what the Church has been doing for centuries, handing on, expounding, the love of God, the grace of God, salvation.

The deaf mute represents all of us. We all live in a state of isolation and inability to communicate.

In this Gospel account, we see how grace can be transmitted through the senses. A deaf mute is someone who cannot hear or speak. His ability to communicate is severely compromised. In reality, this deaf mute represents every human person. Each one of us has compromised communication, and we risk finding ourselves in a state of complete solitude or isolation. We need to be vindicated from this state by the vengeance of God. We were not made for solitude but for communion. We were not made to revolve around ourselves but to go out from ourselves and also to receive from others.

We need to be taken away from the crowd in order to be healed. We cannot be healed by continuing to be absorbed in the same banal things. Then we need the grace of God to comprehend his works in our lives. And we need to have the word of God on our tongues.

The process by which Jesus redeems this man from his solitude is curious. First of all, he takes the man away from the crowd. The work of healing cannot happen in the world, doing the things that we do every day, the things of the majority, the things of the crowd. We don’t get healed of our solitude by following the rhythm of fashion. We cannot enter a phase of evolution, growth, resolution, dissolution of the profound knots of our being by doing the things that everyone else does. We need to allow ourselves to be taken out of the crowd and away from the world. Jesus then places his fingers in the man’s ears. This might not sound very impressive, but the fingers represent works, and the fingers of God are those that created the heavens! The fingers of Jesus in our ears. We must allow the works of God to arrive in our ears so that our ears might be healed. The deaf mute represents all of us, and we are deaf to the works of God. We use our faculty of listening to apprehend banal and superficial things. We need the grace of God to allow us to comprehend that the hand of God is operating in the everyday things that happen to us. Then Jesus touches the man’s tongue with his saliva. In order to speak, it is essential to have saliva on our tongue. And in order for us to speak authentically, we need to have the word of God on our tongue. The works of God in our ears, the words of God on our tongues – all of this is a process of initiation. The deaf mute becomes the recipient of gifts, the grace to listen and to speak.

Jesus looks towards heaven before healing the man. It is upon our relationship with the Father in heaven that true communication is based.

Then Jesus does something strange. He looks towards heaven, sighs, and says, “Ephphata” - be opened. Why does Jesus look towards heaven? He is in relationship with his Father. “Heaven” is not some kind of roof above the heads of humanity. Rather it represents the Father. On the basis of the open heaven that exists between Jesus and his Father, humanity too can experience the openness of heaven. We can open our hearts, our lines of communication with each other. Immediately, the man’s ears were opened and he began to speak. This man received a word from God, an act from God. This is what permits the dissolution of his solitude. All of us need the Lord to carry out this vindication. We need to have the works of God in our ears and the words of God on our tongues. All too often, with complicated and contradictory techniques, we try to find solutions for our loneliness. But the only way to dissipate loneliness is with the opening of the heavens. Through the relationship between Jesus and the Father, we discover that we can live in communion. Jesus lives in communion with the Father and gives us the gift of living in communion with him. Only then do we begin to listen in a new way and speak in a new way. May the Lord give us the grace this Sunday to allow our ears and tongues to be touched, so that we can receive the word of God.