A reflection on the daily readings by Father Perry for Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time.
+ “Eat it. Your eyes will be opened. You will be like gods.”
That was the promise and the lie all wrapped into one sneaky, sleazy invitation to do what would become known as sin.
They lost their innocence. They had, for the first time, a need to hide from God.
Their mouths opened up now in lies and deceptions and excuses. Everything changed. Everything was different. A lot was lost. And what was gained was now more difficultly smeared with confusion and pain and sorrow.
Sin! Sin! Sin!
+ Some in the Jewish community thought that if you were mute, it must have been because you had sinned, or maybe your parents had sinned.
Jesus, in John’s Gospel, set the record straight: It wasn’t because of anyone’s sin (except in a larger context to blame it on Adam and Eve); it was just a part of life.
Granted, being deaf and mute certainly deprived one of many things so beautiful and wonderful, like music, words of love, gossip, deafening cheers, and birds chirping away.
Oh, the deaf and mute had to listen and speak with their eyes. And to be quite frank, sometimes spoke and heard with much greater clarity than those who had the gifts.
But in any case, Jesus was confronted with a deaf mute brought to him by the crowd.
“Ephphatha,” he shouted, and immediately the man’s ears were opened and he could speak clearly.
The command by Jesus — “Be opened!” — immediately “opened” this man to new life, new experience, freedom, gifts and delights, and gave a new power of communication given and received now and for now on.
+ Such freedom — Jesus gave so freely.
Such freedom is ours to receive from that Christ who walked among “us” and forever changed our lives.
And he went deep, even to the power of forgiveness of sin and, therefore, echoing the psalmist today: “Blessed is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered.”
Blessed are we! Blessed, forever changed. Forever graced. Forever now offered new freedom, new truth, new love, and new life!
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 14th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
