One of the most touching YouTube videos I’ve ever seen is one in which a deaf woman receives new technology to heal her hearing. She hears her husband’s voice for the first time and her own, too and bursts into tears of overwhelming joy. It must have been like an immovable wall between her and her loved ones that came tumbling down. We are all like this woman, to some degree. We believe in the presence of God’s love, but we can’t hear Him. We can’t speak well about Him. The deaf man who can’t speak properly in the Gospel today is an image of what God wants us to experience again and again. Jesus takes the man aside to a private place away from the crowd, touches his ears and tongue, and says, “Ephphata!” The man’s ears are opened, and he speaks clearly. Contact with Christ has this effect on us. This experience happens to us in our baptism, almost exactly. It happens to us in the liturgy. It happens in our private prayer. It happens when we hear the voice of God in our conscience. The more we engage these privileged channels of Jesus’ healing, the more we are empowered to hear and speak of the presence of God’s perfect love. Father John Muir
