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The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost.
- Adam Paige
- Aug 23
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 26
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. A Miraculous Cure.
The Gospel according to St. Mark, vii. 31-37.
“At that time, Jesus going out of the coasts of Tyre, came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring to Him one deaf and dumb, and they be sought Him that He would lay His hand upon him. And taking him from the multitude apart, He put His fingers into his ears, and spitting, He touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven He groaned, and said to him: Ephpheta, which is: Be thou opened. And immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right. And He charged them that they should tell no man, but the more He charged them, so much the more a great deal did they publish it; and so much the more did they wonder, saying: He hath done all things well; He hath made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.”
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will to-morrow interrupt our meditations upon humility that we may meditate upon the gospel of the day. This gospel presents to us two remarkable facts: 1st, a miraculous cure worked by Jesus Christ; 2d, a beautiful eulogium on the Saviour pronounced by the witnesses of the miracle. From the meditation on these two facts we will deduce the resolution: 1st, every day to lend a docile ear to grace, and to watch over our tongue carefully that we may not sin in our words; 2d, to apply ourselves to performing our ordinary actions in a perfect manner. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words which the people, according to what is told us in the gospel, said: “He hath done all things well” (Mark vii. 37).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Jesus Christ making the journey from the confines of Tyre to Sidon, and from Sidon to the lake of Galilee. Oh, how holy was this journey ! The good pleasure of His Father was the principle of it (John viii. 29); charity was its motive: He was going to cure a deaf- mute; and a divine modesty was its rule. O God, grant me grace to make all my journeys in this manner, and to be edified by everything which takes place in Thine.
The Miraculous Cure Operated by Jesus Christ.
Hardly had Jesus Christ reached the end of His journey, before a deaf-mute was brought before Him and He was entreated to heal him. O charity of the Saviour ! He cures him immediately by touching his tongue and his ears, whilst at the same time uttering a deep sigh and looking up towards heaven (Mark vii. 34). How much more worthy of our sighs and tears are the spiritual deaf-mutes with which the earth is covered; the deaf who keep the ears of their heart closed to the inspirations of grace, to the remorse of the conscience, to the word of God, to holy books, to good examples; the mutes who do not pray or who pray ill, who are silent in society when the glory of God requires that they should speak, at times to impose silence upon the blaspheming tongue which attacks religion, wounds charity, outrages modesty, at times to mix some words tending to edification in wholly worldly conversation. Alas ! am I not of the number of these deaf-mutes? O Jesus, say to my ears in my meditations, in my readings, or when I listen to Thy holy word, Ephpheta, that is to say, Be opened, and then, speak Lord, Thy servant will listen (I. Kings iii. 9). Open the ears of my heart, as Thou didst open those of the woman of Philippi, who was evangelized by St Paul (Acts xvi.4). Unloose my tongue, as Thou didst unloose the tongue of the mute in our gospel, that it may speak of Thy glory, that it may exalt and bless Thee, that it may expose to Thee my miseries, and call down upon me Thy mercies; that it may speak to my neighbor of all that may edify him and lead him to Thee. But above all, Lord, govern my tongue, the origin of the greater portion of my faults, that it may abstain from all sharp words, from all calumny and vanity, from all that is calculated to give pain to others, to wound modesty or religion, to scandalize or to tend to evil, and that it may serve, on the contrary, to edify others, to exhort them to all that is good, to console the afflicted (I. Cor. xiv. 3).
The Beautiful Eulogium Pronounced on Jesus by the Witnesses of the Miracle.
“He hath done all things well” (Mark vii. 37) exclaimed the witnesses of the cure on which we have been meditating. Admirable words, and the most beautiful eulogium which can be made upon Jesus Christ; it is an eulogium on God Himself and His adorable Providence. We ought to respect these words in the midst of the revolutions of this world and the events which we cannot understand. We are troubled and scandalized at seeing empires which crumble, families which perish, the crime and impiety which everywhere prevail, religion and right which are oppressed. At such a spectacle we ought to say: Providence presides over all; it has its hidden designs, we do not understand; but without understanding them, we ought to respect them, to love them, to bless them, to proclaim that they are the doing of infinite wisdom, power, and holiness; all that God does is well, we ought always to repeat to ourselves. We ought to apply these words to ourselves, not in the sense that we do all things well like God, but in order to recall to ourselves in each one of our acts that the whole of our holiness consists in doing all things well; that the perfection of our ordinary actions is what God demands of us, and that to seek virtue elsewhere would be a deplorable illusion.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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