Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
(I Kings 11:4-13; Mark 7:31-37)
The film Babel, an Academy Award nominee a few years ago, showed how the world is interconnected. A Japanese schoolgirl is deaf and mute like the man brought to Jesus in the gospel today. She is also desperately lonely. Her father, who is depressed over the loss of his wife, had been hunting in Morocco where he left his gun with a guide. The guide sells the gun to a herder who presents it prematurely to his son. The son is goaded into shooting at a tour bus and seriously injures a Southern Californian woman traveling with her husband. The couple left their children with their Mexican housekeeper whose reckless nephew takes them across the border, then jeopardizes everyone’s life by trying to evade the Border patrol upon returning. The story leaves the viewer identifying with all of these characters in the global human quest for love.
We should similarly identify with that deaf-mute whom Jesus heals. We too have trouble hearing– not so much with our ears but with our hearts. We too falter in our speech by forgetting to give the testimony of faith to those in need of assurance. In a world where sensual gratification has become not only the lowest common denominator but also the highest recognizable goal, we do well to allow Jesus to open our ears and to straighten our tongues so that we might proclaim what is truly a truer fulfilling. This is the message of Babel – people need to listen carefully to one another and to respond compassionately.
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