Mark 7: 31-37

Then he left the region of Tyre, went through Sidon back to Galilee Lake and over to the district of the Ten Towns.

Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. He took the man off by himself, put his fingers in the man’s ears and some spit on the man’s tongue. Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, “Ephphatha! – Open up!” And it happened. The man’s hearing was clear and his speech plain – just like that.

Jesus urged them to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more, beside themselves with excitement. “He’s done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless.”

Gospel Reflection

Jesus avoids attention after his work of healing the deaf man. He’s not a quarter hour celebrity. Jesus didn’t want admiration, he wanted love to flow into and out of ourselves – doing good quietly. The best of things are ordinary. In the ordinary Jesus worked the miracle and in the ordinary we will hear new things.

The theologian Karl Rahner SJ was once asked whether he believed in miracles. His answer: “I don’t believe in them, I rely on them to get through each day!” Indeed, miracles are always present within our lives. Of birth, of love, of hope. The ways people get over hurts and they forgive. Someone giving a lot from the little they have. It is the world of mystery – of little miracles. A miracle is not against nature – it is something that causes faith and love.

Can we recover the simplicity of life with the small miracles that get us through every day? All of us have something new to say of God and of life. And we get more than we knew out of the simplicity of life.