Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
The film Babel, an Academy Award nominee a number of 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.
In today’s gospel Jesus takes compassion on the deaf-mute whom he heals. Most people today have a similar trouble in hearing– not so much with their ears but with their hearts. They cannot hear what God is telling them through the Scriptures. They also falter in speech by forgetting to thank God for the blessings they have received.
In a world where convenience and pleasure have overtaken discipline and dedication as human goals, we do well to allow Jesus to open our ears and to coordinate our tongues. We want to assimilate the Word of God so that we might proclaim it to the world. This message is similar to that of Babel – people need to listen carefully to one another and to respond compassionately.
