Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel Mark 7:31-37 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)
Then Jesus returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha”, that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.
”
In the Second Reading today St James asks in his blunt way, For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place”, while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there”, or, “Sit down at my feet”, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
In 1982 I
spent three months working in a hospital in a city in the the US Midwest. I
noticed that a particular nurse always wore a pro-life badge, for which I
admired her. But in the three months I was there as chaplain to patients and
staff on the floor we both worked on she never spoke to me except at a weekly
staff meeting. I was curious rather than hurt by this and before I finished I
asked her if we could meet. I told her what I had noticed and expressed my
admiration for her quiet pro-life stand. She was quite taken aback, as she had
never been conscious of ignoring me. It turned out that she had once had a bad
experience with a priest and had 'tuned out' on all priests. We had a very good conversation and ended up hugging each other.
The nurse had been making distinctions but was far
from being a judge with evil thoughts. We can be such, by
deliberately shutting out another person or group of persons from our life. But
very often we are unaware of others or of their needs.
One group of persons that is largely ignored in the Church, is the Deaf. (Those who are profoundly deaf refer to themselves as a group as 'The Deaf', with an upper-case 'D'.) One of my late Columban colleagues, Fr Joseph Coyle from the city of Derry in Northern Ireland, worked for many years in what is now the Diocese of Kabankalan, in the southern part of the province of Negros Occidental, Philippines. Early in his time in remote parishes he became aware of the needs of persons who had lost limbs. He helped many to get artificial limbs.
But later he noticed that there were persons who were more or less totally isolated, even from their own families - persons who were profoundly deaf from birth or from early childhood. They did not even have a common language with their parents or siblings. Their deafness was experienced as an affliction by themselves and their families. They all felt a sense of powerlessness.
In English the word 'dumb' has come to mean 'stupid' because of the perception in the past that those who used to be described as 'deaf and dumb' were stupid.
Fr Joe Coyle then focused his ministry on the Deaf. In the late 1980s he set up a residence in Bacolod City, Welcome Home, for out-of-town students so that they could attend schools with special education programmes for the Deaf. That particular need is now being met more and more in public schools in other cities and towns.
One of the services of Welcome Home Foundation, Inc. today is to send catechists to local public schools where there are profoundly deaf students. Some of these catechists are themselves profoundly deaf. Welcome Home also strongly encourages parents of profoundly deaf children to learn Sign Language and holds classes for them.
While based in Bacolod City from 2002 until 2017 I regularly celebrated Mass in Welcome Home, using my limited Sign Language and with the help of interpreters, some of them profoundly deaf. When I left the Philippines in 2017 the Deaf participated in one of the Masses in San Sebastian Cathedral on the last Sunday of the month. (I’m not sure what the situation is during the Covid-19 pandemic). The current chaplain to Welcome Home and the Deaf in Bacolod is Fr Art Arnaiz CICM who has been involved with the Deaf since his seminary days and is fluent in Filipino Sign Language.
But I know that there have been times when parishioners and priests in various places have complained that signing interpreters were a 'distraction'. In some instances the Deaf have been made clearly unwelcome at Mass. Maybe some of those who made them feel such are already in 'St James territory' (Second Reading).
I do not know the source of the sorrow of the old man in Van Gogh's painting above, which expresses very painful isolation. But isolation is what many profoundly deaf persons feel, especially if they are seen as 'dumb' in the modern sense. And what must deaf persons feel if some don't even want to welcome them at the celebration of Holy Mass, our most important act of worship as Catholic Christians to our loving Father?
As in so many of the healing stories in the Gospel, we see Jesus giving his full attention to the person in need. We see him engaging physically with that person, using his very spittle in the act of enabling the man to hear and to speak clearly.
Again, as in so many of the healing stories, Jesus
is bringing someone back into the circle. The man's deafness and speech
impediment, the latter a direct result of the former, isolated him to a large
degree from his own family and community. Now he was fully part of them again.
I remember seeing the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestial with a young friend, Glenn, who is profoundly, though not totally deaf, due to Usher's Syndrome, which also affects his sight. At the time he was about the same age as Elliott, the boy in the clip above. I watched the movie through Glenn's eyes, with a deeper appreciation of what is involved when a profoundly deaf person and a hearing person are trying to communicate. It can be very hard work, but rewarding.
Nearly thirty years ago I saw something
very beautiful at the Home of Joy in Tayuman, Tondo, Manila, a home for
children run by the Missionaries of Charity. I was looking for a particular
girl who was profoundly deaf. I'll call her Maria. I found her playing with a
group of other girls, all of them using Sign Language. But only Maria was deaf.
Without being aware of it, she had invited her friends into her world of
silence - and they, without being aware of it, had invited her into their world
of sound. All were equal.
A very important detail in the gospel is that not only did the deaf man's friends bring him to Jesus but they begged him to lay his hand on him.
Many churches in the western world
have what is called a 'loop system' whereby those who are hard of hearing and
use hearing aids can participate fully in Mass and other services. Being hard
of hearing is something that very often comes with growing old, and I am
experiencing that myself now - I've been using hearing aids for nearly four years now - but it is a very different reality from profound deafness, especially if that
deafness has been there since birth or early childhood.
The soul of a
profoundly deaf person yearns for the living God just as much as the soul of a
hearing person. But do we, the majority who are hearing, really allow/enable
the Deaf to participate fully in the Holy
Mass?
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 9-5-2021 if necessary).
Authentic Beauty
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
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