How many of you are hard of hearing, raise your hand? All right, we got a lot of hard of hearing people here. How many of your spouses are hard of hearing, raise your hand? Oh, there we go! How many of your husbands are just ignoring you, raise your hand? There was a husband that went to a doctor because his wife couldn’t hear. He said to the doctor, “I don’t know what to do because I talk to her, and she never responds. It’s like she can’t hear me.” The doctor said, “Well, we have to find out how much she can’t hear, how bad the problem is, and that’ll help us determine what we need to do to help it.” So, he said, “What I want you to do is start off about twenty feet away and ask her a question, and if she doesn’t answer, move forward fifteen feet, then ten feet, then five feet.” He goes home, and it’s almost dinner time. He’s twenty feet away and he says to his wife, “Honey, what’s for dinner?” No response. He walks up to fifteen feet, and he says, “Honey, what’s for dinner?” No response. He goes up to ten feet. “Honey, what’s for dinner?” No response. He walks up to five feet. “Honey, what’s for dinner,” and she said, “I told you four times we’re having meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”
We sometimes have difficulty hearing. How many of you have a difficult time hearing God’s voice, raise your hand? In all gentleness, how many of you feel like you’ve never heard God’s voice, raise your hand? God wants to speak to us, and he is always speaking to us, but sometimes we can’t hear him.
What do we do in the times that we can’t hear him? In the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, he prophesized that, “When the Savior comes the eyes of the blind will be open and the ears of the deaf will be cleared.” Jesus comes to fulfill this prophecy. In the Gospel today we hear about this deaf man. The interesting thing is people brought the deaf man to Jesus. He didn’t even come on his own. It was his friends and family that brought him to Jesus, and they begged him to lay hands on him, because they knew if he could but touch the man, his ears would be open, and he would be able to speak. Now, Jesus does something very interesting. He takes the man off by himself and very intimately heals him.
This is how he does it. He takes a finger and places it in his ears and spitting, touched his tongue. See, Jesus is a very tangible person. He has always wanted to be human so that he could touch us and that he could heal us. Then he gives us a remarkable example of prayer. After he lays his hands on the man he looks up towards his father and he groans. I think that’s a really wonderful model of prayer. He didn’t even use any words. He looked up to his father, and he groans, and then he says, “Ephphatha,” which means be opened, and immediately the man’s ears are opened. He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.
How are we to respond when we can’t hear, when we really want to hear God’s voice but don’t hear it? Just like Jesus, our prayer could be simply looking up to heaven and groaning. We don’t even have to know the words or what to say to God. We can just simply look up and groan and think, “I can’t hear you God. Please, I want to hear.” The thing is, Jesus is always talking to us. The word of God is always with us. Not only do we need to hear, but he actually has to open our ears so that we might hear.
When you were baptized, in every baptized child or adult, at the very end of the baptism, the priest or deacon lays hands on the child. Then he blesses the child’s ears and mouth and he says, “May your ears soon be open that you may hear and your mouth to proclaim the glory of God.” Our ears have been opened in baptism and our mouths can proclaim the Glory of God.
Here are some practical ways that we can hear God’s voice. One is just asking him, “Lord can you open my ears that I may hear you?” Another way is just to groan. The next time you want to hear God’s voice, look up to heaven and groan. You can also ask somebody to pray over you, to touch your ears and your mouth that you may hear and speak. Sometimes and oftentimes, we hear God’s voice in our inner being and our inner heart and mind. Just by having whatever it is that you want to hear God’s voice, opening up the scripture because his word is alive. Just reading some scripture and praying with it, and you’ll begin to hear his voice. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes sin can get in the way and block our ears from hearing, so confession is a very wonderful way to open our ears. We can also read scripture out loud. There is something about that. Not only to read it silently to yourself, but try reading it out loud, because when your voice speaks out loud, the word of God, you can hear him.
Many of the Saints journaled. After they would pray, they would journal their experience and find that God was actually speaking to them as they were journaling. Silence. We live in such a busy world and God oftentimes speak speaks to us, not in the noise, not in the earthquakes, not in the floods, but in the silence of our own hearts. It could be coming to daily Mass. It could be learning more about how to discern God’s voice. It could be spending time in front of the Blessed Sacrament. God wants to open your ears. He wants you to hear his voice. He is speaking always. Ask the Lord that you may hear so that he may say to you, “Ephphatha, be open.”
