Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Hosea 8:4-7.11-13; Matthew 9:32-38)
A popular spiritual director used to say, “All people are good, and all people are hurting.” The biblical stories of creation and of the fall reveal the same truth. After breathing life into the man, he and his partner walk with God in Paradise. Then their mistrust of the Creator’s goodness ruptures the friendship. God’s subsequent interrogation reveals that the sin has also fractured their own relationship. Finally, the due punishment breaches human rapport with nature.
In time some of the closeness with God that the first humans enjoyed is restored. Most notably, God leads the Hebrews through the desert for forty years forging a new covenant between God and humanity. But the people always return to evil ways. Hosea and the other prophets point out their fickleness. They dally with metal idols and scandalously satiate their passions.
In today’s gospel passage Jesus enables a deaf mute to speak as he has previously restored the sight of the blind and raised the dead. These reparations indicate God’s approaching the people in a personal and, thus, definitive way. In short order Jesus will establish the unbreakable bond between God and humanity with his death and resurrection. For now he points out the need to pray that the coming redemption will be announced throughout the world.
