The woman who sat before me had it all, or so it seemed – a dream job, a house in the suburbs, and a healthy toddler with another baby on the way. She was often surrounded by loyal friends, loved her family back home in coastal New England, and could most certainly grace the cover of those glossy fashion magazines sold at the supermarket checkout.
And yet, on this particular day in my rectory office, she wept openly. Tears that came in such a torrent of raw emotion that is seemed as though she had not cried for years until this one moment in time.
The cause? A husband whose words made her feel worthless and less than human. A man to whom she vowed her heart had chosen instead to destroy the very love (and forgiveness) she offered him time and time again. For reasons unknown, he relished every opportunity he had to find his wife’s weaknesses and inner-struggles and then embarrass her in public, in private and perhaps most distressing, in front of their daughter.
To be shamed by another is a terrible experience. As we who have experienced humiliation at the hands of others know, its effects can last a lifetime. Be it a teacher, a classmate, a sibling, a stranger or a spouse: words and actions meant to crush our spirits end-up shaping how we trust, how we love, and how we see the world around us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus does something so beautiful and awesomely respectful that the detail is easy to overlook at first. We get so caught-up in the miracle of it all, that we forget that the mercy of God began long before the deaf man’s ears were opened.
Merciful love happened the moment that Jesus pulled the deaf man aside from the crowd.
It should be noted that there is something very touchingly beautiful about the fact that others brought the suffering man to Jesus to be healed. At the core of who we are as Church, that is our mission: to be the ones who bring the lost and hurting to Christ to find His healing and His love.
Once we do, though, we need to step back, for the next part of the journey has to be an intimate encounter between God and the one who has come to him.
What a tender moment that must have been to have the Lord gently lead the deaf man apart from the crowd, especially knowing that some no doubt wanted nothing more than a miracle-show. The Lord respected the man’s dignity and his journey; Christ honored the cross-walk the man had made up until this point, and it was into this very space God entered.
How He longs to do the same for each of us. How He hungers to pull us away from the crowd to listen to our hearts, our hurts, our sins and our fears. Christ takes us by the hand – if we are willing – to lead us to that place where Divine Mercy touches shame.
We call that Confession. Reconciliation. Sacrament.
Even the details of how Jesus healed the deafness of the man who stood before him is so shockingly intimate that it shows a God in love with him (and with us): Jesus used his own saliva and physically touched the most broken part of this gentleman’s life – his ears and his tongue.
What an encounter that must have been: to have the very Lord of Life – the one who breathed His own Breath into Adam – heal and strengthen the brokenness using his very own Body.
And we say to ourselves: if only. If only God would do that for me. Why won’t He come to me and heal my wounded self – physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally?
And yet, there is no “if only” with Christ. There only is. He does come to heal us with the same intimacy that he had shown the deaf man. The very same Christ who died on the Cross for us and rose from the dead continues to share that intimate love of healing and mercy when he feeds us with His Body and Blood. There is no difference between what our Lord did for the deaf man and what he does for us when we humbly approach the Sacrament of Love at every celebration of the Mass.
He was there for the deaf man in Decapolis two thousand years ago; he is present now wherever we may find ourselves, and to us, too, he utters the same power-filled word that reverberated into the very being of the man born deaf: Ephphatha! – Be opened.
Be opened to the healing and grace found in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist. Be open to the dignity that is yours through Baptism -- never let anyone steal your joy. Be open to the ways in which God wants to use your life to glorify His Name and build His Kingdom. And be open to the miracles that happen all around us every day because of His Merciful Love poured out from the Cross.
We all certainly recognize the fact that so many among us – perhaps even ourselves – have cried out for healing, and the healing has never seemed to find us. We are, so it seems, unlike the deaf man whose physical hearing was restored after the Christ-encounter. No doubt, it hurts not being healed. “Why not me?” we cry out in moments of anger and desperation.
The young wife and mother who carried the weight of shame placed upon her by her husband often repeated the very same heart-breaking sentiment: Why not me?
To which came the response: But it is happening. The healing is coming – slowly, perhaps. Fits and starts. But God is always at work in hearts who seek Him.
For you see – this broken woman with a beautiful, hurting soul laid her Cross before the only One who could heal her. She surrendered it all to Him, and in so doing she found her freedom. She was no longer burdened by her husband’s shame … or the chains of the Evil One who wanted to keep her tied to her spouse’s brokenness and sinfulness.
In Christ, she found her way forward. She found her “Be open/Ephphatha!” moment.
I’d love to tell you, of course, that her Ephphatha encounter changed everything for the better. It hasn’t. It is, rather, a journey and work in progress. But here’s where the “Be open” healing is happening: this incredible daughter of God has invited her husband to counseling; she has found the courage to seek help for herself; she now shares her story with friends instead of living under the shadow of secrets and shame; and while she still holds-out hope for healing for her husband, she currently lives back home with her own mom, raising her two children to be confident young women who will one day come to see the courage their mother had to find and live her “Be open” moment.
And it all came about through the tender grace and intimacy of the One who called her apart from the crowd to say: “I love you. I am always here. Be open!”