Search Web Site
Featured Photos
Click photos to enlarge
Click here for information on the Knights of Columbus Charity Golf Tournament held on Saturday, June 15, 2024.
If it seems like there are a lot of miracle stories in Mark’s Gospel, that is because there are! I went back to chapter 1 and started counting. I counted ten individual stories up to today’s passage, and we are just in chapter 7, half way through the gospel. And I am not even counting the times when we hear, “And he cured many who were sick with various diseases.” As I read through these healing stories two things struck me. First, almost all of them involve Jesus touching someone. Secondly, the response from the crowds is usually the same, they are amazed, astonished. Those two actions, touch and amazement, are important in understanding Christ’s miracles and people’s reaction, including our own.
Why? Because at the heart of all of Christ’s miracles is compassion. Compassion is why he heals. And more than anything else, compassion involves touch, a physical presence and nearness to the one suffering. Compassion is very different than pity. We have all heard the expression, “you have to pity them”or “isn’t that pitiful.” Pity can be very distant, you don’t have to get your hands dirty when you pity someone, just look at them and shake your head. Compassion on the other hand is a response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help, to do something. Compassion involves action. Over and over again we read in Mark’s miracles that Jesus touches, reaches out, to the sick, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, the deaf. Today he puts his fingers in the man’s ears, touches his tongue. Touch is one of our most powerful human expressions. Touch says “I love you, I care, I am here for you, I will be with you.” We know that. At a funeral we never know what to say, but we can touch, hold, hug someone that is grieving and that says more than words. That is compassion, and it can heal.
But the crowds, even the disciples, only saw the external sign, a deaf man hears and speaks. And they were amazed. They didn’t understand that the miracles revealed Jesus’compassion, his mission to care for us, to bring us back to health, both body and soul. To be amazed in the biblical sense means to be caught up in some excitement, some energy, and to just let that excitement flow through you, without understanding it. Amazement is OK at the Super Bowl but not in the gospels. Simply being amazed means you never take in what happened and let it change you. Amazement just leaves us standing there saying, “Wow!” What is even worse, being amazed can also lead to mob scenes, group hysteria and crucifixions. It almost always works against compassion. Jesus knew this well and feared amazement. He knew that the same people, caught up in good energy, who wanted to make him king on Palm Sunday would turn around five days later and be caught up in a different kind of energy that would prompt shouts of, “Crucify him!” When one is simply a conduit for whatever energy happens to be in the air, things can change rather quickly. The hysteria after a Super Bowl win can very easily turn into the mindlessness of rioting and destruction. That is why Jesus says over and over, don’t be amazed. Instead take in what you see and feel but process it, turn it into compassion.
We have to ask ourselves, do we hear, really hear, God’s Word as it is proclaimed here every Sunday. Do we take it in, process it and turn it into compassion, action for the suffering around us? Does what we hear make us reach out to others, touch them, be with them, heal them? Do we hear what the Church says about abortion because it really doesn’t directly affect us. But are we deaf to what the Church says on social justice issues like the death penalty, life without the possibility of parole, immigration, fair wages, because these could affect me, these could cost me money. Remember we can touch lives through a telephone call. We can open the ears of legislatures through emails, letters, petitions. We can heal if we just reach out to others that are hurting. Take in everything we see and hear, then process it, turn it into compassion.
Ephphatha, be opened!
Why? Because at the heart of all of Christ’s miracles is compassion. Compassion is why he heals. And more than anything else, compassion involves touch, a physical presence and nearness to the one suffering. Compassion is very different than pity. We have all heard the expression, “you have to pity them”or “isn’t that pitiful.” Pity can be very distant, you don’t have to get your hands dirty when you pity someone, just look at them and shake your head. Compassion on the other hand is a response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help, to do something. Compassion involves action. Over and over again we read in Mark’s miracles that Jesus touches, reaches out, to the sick, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, the deaf. Today he puts his fingers in the man’s ears, touches his tongue. Touch is one of our most powerful human expressions. Touch says “I love you, I care, I am here for you, I will be with you.” We know that. At a funeral we never know what to say, but we can touch, hold, hug someone that is grieving and that says more than words. That is compassion, and it can heal.
But the crowds, even the disciples, only saw the external sign, a deaf man hears and speaks. And they were amazed. They didn’t understand that the miracles revealed Jesus’compassion, his mission to care for us, to bring us back to health, both body and soul. To be amazed in the biblical sense means to be caught up in some excitement, some energy, and to just let that excitement flow through you, without understanding it. Amazement is OK at the Super Bowl but not in the gospels. Simply being amazed means you never take in what happened and let it change you. Amazement just leaves us standing there saying, “Wow!” What is even worse, being amazed can also lead to mob scenes, group hysteria and crucifixions. It almost always works against compassion. Jesus knew this well and feared amazement. He knew that the same people, caught up in good energy, who wanted to make him king on Palm Sunday would turn around five days later and be caught up in a different kind of energy that would prompt shouts of, “Crucify him!” When one is simply a conduit for whatever energy happens to be in the air, things can change rather quickly. The hysteria after a Super Bowl win can very easily turn into the mindlessness of rioting and destruction. That is why Jesus says over and over, don’t be amazed. Instead take in what you see and feel but process it, turn it into compassion.
We have to ask ourselves, do we hear, really hear, God’s Word as it is proclaimed here every Sunday. Do we take it in, process it and turn it into compassion, action for the suffering around us? Does what we hear make us reach out to others, touch them, be with them, heal them? Do we hear what the Church says about abortion because it really doesn’t directly affect us. But are we deaf to what the Church says on social justice issues like the death penalty, life without the possibility of parole, immigration, fair wages, because these could affect me, these could cost me money. Remember we can touch lives through a telephone call. We can open the ears of legislatures through emails, letters, petitions. We can heal if we just reach out to others that are hurting. Take in everything we see and hear, then process it, turn it into compassion.
Ephphatha, be opened!