Open Up to Life

Preparation for the Jubilee of Hope, with Dom Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori, OCist.

In the Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee, Spes Non Confundit, Pope Francis recalls that “All of us, however, need to recover the joy of living, since men and women, created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26), cannot rest content with getting along one day at a time, settling for the here and now and seeking fulfilment in material realities alone. This leads to a narrow individualism and the loss of hope; it gives rise to a sadness that lodges in the heart and brings forth fruits of discontent and intolerance” (§ 9).

Living on the surface, we seek happiness in things, activities, and relationships that lack depth, we lean on false sources of security, just getting by, just surviving.

“We must admit, all of us, that too often we find ourselves just getting by, contenting ourselves with survival. What does it mean to “get by” (vivacchiare)? We understand it if we think of verbs constructed in the same form, like “sing under your breath” (canticchiare) or “pick at some food” (mangiucchiare). They mean to express that, instead of singing or eating like one ought, like we are capable of doing, we did it just, so to say, halfway, superficially, not fully.”

Living this way, we are not corresponding to God’s intention, to his dream for our deep and true happiness.

“God, the composer of our life, thought it up and created it to be lived in fulness, to be, as it is said, “sung out at the top of your lungs.” And instead, from original sin onward, man has the tendency to get by more than to live; to live, that is, halfway, superficially, without thinking of the beauty and intensity that the Creator wanted to express with this unique and absolutely original creature of his.”

It is not just a matter of life, but of eternal life.  “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).

“But in fact, eternal life, that is, the fulness of life that makes us truly happy, is a reality that we do not possess, that we do not manage to give to ourselves, a reality that we must receive from the Lord, a reality that we must hope for from God.”

Eternal life is not something we can “grab and go;” we must receive it from the hand of God, through encounter with Jesus Christ.  With this is mind, I turn to the gospel for the day, which presents such an encounter as an opening to fullness of life.

“They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.” (Mk 7:32)

It becomes clear when we look at the context of this story that we are dealing not primarily with a physical disability which affects relatively few, but rather with a spiritual affliction which is quite common.  Just a few verses later, Jesus will say to his disciples, “Do you still not perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have eyes and fail to see?  Do you have ears and fail to hear? …Do you not yet understand?” (Mk 8:17-18, 21).  The disciples’ failure to answer is its own answer: like them, we do not understand, we do not perceive how Jesus’ words and actions speak of deeper things than bread or fish, deafness or blindness.  The first glimmer of understanding is the realization that I am deaf to God’s Word, and because of this my speech is impaired.

“He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.” (Mk 7:33)

The cure of this deaf man is requested by an anonymous “they.”  In this sense he is passive: acted upon by his benefactors and by his healer without himself acting.  Once he has been placed in the hands of Jesus, he is drawn away from the crowd for an up-close-and-personal encounter, which takes the form of being touched.  The whole sequence of events is rather overwhelming, when imagined from the perspective of one cut off from verbal communication.  The Greek sentences are active, with Jesus as subject, but consider them in the passive, with the deaf man as subject:

apolabomenos – he is taken aside, physically drawn
ebalen tous daktulous…eis ta ota – fingers are thrust into his ears
ptusas hepsato tes glosses – his tongue is touched with spittle

One thinks of being subject to the benevolent but businesslike ministrations of an emergency room medical staff.  No time to ask the patient’s permission – this intervention is needed, now!

“Then he looked up to heaven and groaned.” (Mk 7:34)

Jesus’ emergency intervention into this man’s body and life happens quickly, firmly and without protest, but also tenderly.  This becomes clear in the intercessory groan.  Out of Jesus’ mouth comes the sound of deep sorrow, resonating from the bowels of compassion and radiating out to embrace the afflicted one and cry out to heaven on his behalf.  This great sigh contains within it all the pains and sorrows and unfulfilled potential of this man’s life, but also the tragic losses and limitations of all human lives.  God groans for us.

“‘Ephphatha!’— that is, ‘Be opened!’” (Mk 7:34)

This is the word that opens the door, not of the man’s ears and tongue only, but of his heart and ours.  I repeat this word to myself, endlessly, in hope that I, too, shall be opened.  Every aspect of my consciousness must come to know my Lord and healer through his words and actions in my life, through that touch which opens me to hear and to meet him.  Let everything speak to me of his tenderness and compassion, of his aching, groaning desire that all should have life.

Are we willing to be opened to see and hear Jesus?
Do we find in ourselves resistance to such opening, to the risk of living to the full?
How can we correspond more actively to Jesus’ desire to give us life?
Can we act like the anonymous benefactors of the deaf man, calling on Jesus with a heartfelt groan to open the lives of all people to the gift of himself?

Sources:
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/bulls/documents/20240509_spes-non-confundit_bolla-giubileo2025.html
https://www.ocist.org/ocist/images/pdf/01ENMFC2024.pdf

Image: Julia Stankova, Healing the Deaf and Dumb Man