Sharing in Jesus’ Mercy Toward the Sick, Fifth Friday (II), February 11, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes
Thirtieth World Day of the Sick
February 11, 2022
1 Kings 11:29-32.12:19, Ps 81, Mk 7:31-37

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points guided today’s homily: 

• In today’s Gospel we glimpse the awe of those who witnessed Jesus’ miracles and works as they were happening. By the scene we encounter today, Jesus had already made people’s hearts burn with his preaching. They had seen him cast out demons, cure many who were sick, feed a multitude starting with few pieces of bread and fish, walk on water and even raise a young girl from the dead. On the force of this reputation, several true friends brought a man who was deaf and mute to Jesus, begging him to lay hands on him. They were not to be let down. The Lord put his finger into the man’s ears, touched his tongue with spit, looked up to heaven, sighed, and cried out in Aramaic, “Be opened!” and the miracle was worked. Amazement seized them all. Even though Jesus told them not to say anything about the miracle, they couldn’t help themselves. They were astounded beyond measure and cried out, “He has done all things well!”
• “He has done all things well!” This line of joyful amazement in front of Jesus should be the Christian motto. “Jesus has done all things well!” In his preaching, in his miracles, especially in his salvific passion, death and resurrection, each of us should cry out with the astonished residents of the Decapolis that the Lord has indeed hit a home run on every swing. Everything He does flows from His infinite wisdom. He really does know what is best for us — in terms of our eternal salvation — and carries it out. And his work hasn’t stopped. He continues to listen to us in prayer. He continues to grant countless miracles through the intercession of saints. He continues to feed us with the sacrament of his body and blood. He has done, and continues to do, all things well.
• This motto, which really is the characteristically-Christian attitude, is being challenged in many segments of our culture today. This is really nothing new. The first pagans and Jewish leaders thought Jesus was a colossal failure, a criminal executed shamelessly on the electric chair of his day, a so-called king who died crowned not with gold but with thorns. Little did they know what would happen on Easter Sunday. Little could they fathom what the small band of fishermen, tax-collectors and other relative nobodies would be do in his name throughout the globe. Some people in every age continue to make the accusation that he doesn’t do everything well. They look at the existence of physical evil in the world — babies who are born with serious infirmities, people who are victims of natural disasters, others who are victims of moral evils — and try to argue that either God must not exist, or is not all powerful and all good, or simply doesn’t do all things well. Today on this World Day of the Sick, founded by St. John Paul II 30 years ago, it’s important for us to confront the objection flowing from the problem of evil. Why does suffering exist? St. John Paul II tried to answer it in his exhortation, published 38 years ago today, Salvifici Doloris, and ultimately answered that “suffering unleashes love,” the love of the incarnation, the love of the Good Samaritan, the love we see in the Gospel. Jesus takes on our suffering so that suffering can become a moral good and compassionate care can make us like God. “Suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world,” John Paul II wrote, ” is also present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one’s ‘I’ on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer.” That’s why Pope Francis, in his letter for today, said that each of us is called to become “Merciful like the Father” in trying to care for the sick not just “like” Jesus but together through, with and in Jesus. Indeed, he finishes his letter on Jesus’ words, “I was sick and you visited me,” a reminder that in the care of the sick, we’re called to serve, love and even adore God.
• This is a message we have to hear, announce and live. That brings us back to the Gospel. The Lord opens up the deaf-mute’s ears and tongue so that he could fully communicate. The same Lord who did that for him — in a way that we might find a little gross, putting his fingers in his ear and spitting and touching his tongue, but was proto-sacramental — did it for us spiritually through a minister on the day of our baptism. He stuck his finger into our ear and touched our tongue and prayed, “May the Lord Jesus who made the deaf hear and the dumb speak, grant that you may soon receive his word with your ears and profess the faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father.” This points to two great truths: the most important reason why we were given ears by God was so that we might hear his word; and the most fundamental reason we were given a mouth was so that we might proclaim our faith to his glory. God wants to speak to us and have us speak to him in prayer and speak to other of our faith in him, of his goodness, of how he continues to do all things well. There are of course other purposes to these faculties, but these are the priorities. God wants us to hear his voice, to listen to Jesus as he said in the Transfiguration, and to obey (ob-audire), which means to listen attentively as words to be done. In today’s Responsorial Psalm, he says, “I am the Lord, your God. Hear my voice!,” because the whole purpose of our outer and inner ears, is to say with sincerity, like young Samuel, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” Similarly God has opened our tongues to do many things, including speaking to him audibly. But the fundamental purpose of our speech is so that we might proclaim our faith to his praise and glory. And so we need to ask ourselves today how assiduously we’re listening to the Lord’s voice and how ardently we’re speaking of him, how he does all things well, how he loves us, what he seeks to do in us.
• In today’s reading we see the consequences that occur when we don’t listen to God well. Yesterday in the first reading, we heard about the fall of Solomon into corruption. At 18 he had pleased God by asking for “an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong” and God was so pleased that he gave him, he said, “a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you. In addition, I give you what you have not asked for, such riches and glory that among kings there is not your like.” But after he used those gifts for God’s glory, after he wrote so many great spiritual books, after he dazzled the Queen of Sheba and so many others, his wise and understanding heart because lustful, then corrupt, and finally idolatrous, building temples to, and adoring, the pagan gods of some of his 700 wives and 300 concubines. For this reason God said to him, as we heard yesterday, “Since… you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I enjoined on you, I will deprive you of the kingdom and give it to your servant. I will not do this during your lifetime, however, for the sake of your father David; it is your son whom I will deprive. Nor will I take away the whole kingdom. I will leave your son one tribe for the sake of my servant David and of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.” And that is what is fulfilled in today’s reading. The prophet Ahijah from Shilo met Jeroboam, who was in charge of the enormous public works of Solomon and tore his new cloak, handing Jeroboam 10 of the 12 pieces, and saying, “Take ten pieces for yourself; the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will tear away the kingdom from Solomon’s grasp and will give you ten of the tribes. One tribe shall remain to him for the sake of David my servant, and of Jerusalem, the city I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.’” Jeroboam became king of the north, Israel, whereas Rehoboam, Solomon’s son from a pagan Ammonite wife, ruled in Judah. Solomon had stopped listening to the Lord’s voice. He had stopped speaking about him with faith. And this is what happened as a direct result of giving into sin — which always divides — rather than following the Lord who seeks to unite us with him and with each other. Solomon’s fall is a reminder to us to listen to God ever more and to proclaim our faith with ever greater ardor.
• When we think about listening to God well and speaking about him, about hearing his word and speaking it through a life filled with faith, we think about our Lady, whom we celebrate in a special way today on the anniversary of her first appearance to St. Bernadette 164 years ago today in Lourdes. It’s there where she reminded St. Bernadette, and through her all of us, about was the importance of prayerfully listening to God, leading Bernadette in prayer and asking that a chapel be built there so that God could be heard. We think about her desire for the conversion of sinners, of those who refuse to hear and obey God, through asking St. Bernadette to pray for them and do penance for their conversion. Her self-revelation not as “Mary of Nazareth” or “the Mother of God” but as the “Immaculate Conception” is an indication of the triumph over sin, or her total enmity toward the evil one, how it is possible to live “full of grace.” When someone is attentive to God’s voice, when someone lives a life of prayer, the fruit is always charity, and that’s one of the reasons why Lourdes is such an important place for our entering into God’s loving care for the sick just as Mary helped introduce Bernadette, and after her so many others, into the loving care of him who does all things well. Our Lady asked St. Bernadette to wash herself in the waters of the spring and pointed to a place where there was just a little puddle. Bernadette dug there but all she got in her hands was mud. She wiped her face with the mud and people thought she was crazy. But later that day that puddle grew into a trickle and then a full stream was revealed. In the cold, crisp waters of that stream since, over 7,000 people have claimed that they have had miraculous physical hearings, 70 of which have been fully medically vetted, but many others have never been reported. Just as Jesus when he came to dwell on earth healed so many people who approached him with faith, he continues to want to heal today. And Mary seeks to form there many who imitate her Son as the Good Samaritan, who come to help with the malades, the sick, rolling them in wheelchairs to the baths, in the processions, at Mass, to their residences, and so much more. It’s moving to see so many other volunteers who care for pilgrims, who try to embrace them with the love with which God wants. That’s an image of the Church at her best, bringing people to Christ through our Lady. The Blessed Mother came to Lourdes to help us be transformed by God’s love in such a way that we seek to share that love with others. She’s come to inspire us to help all those who are physically ill, spiritually sick, emotionally wounded or otherwise in need.
• Today as we celebrate this Mass, on the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, on the 30th World Day of the Sick, we ask the Lord to renew in us the graces of our baptism, so that we may hear accurately and obey assiduously the saving word he proclaims to us in the Gospel. Jesus has done all things well, and he wants to continue doing things well through us, unleashing his love in us and throughout his mystical body. And his greatest ongoing work is what we now do in his memory. May we imitate those in the Decapolis in not being able to restrain ourselves from speaking about what he does here and may we go out to all the Malades in the world and, with Mary, bring them to him.

The readings for today’s Mass were:

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