Judging hearts ~ A Reflection on the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) ~ by Phyllis Booth

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Is 35:4-7a

Ps 148:7, 8-9, 9-10 (1b)

Jms 2:1-5

Mk 7:31-37

In Isaiah's reading, we find the prophet explaining the power and compassion God has for His People.  He tells them that God wants them to be strong and remove fear from their hearts.  God is coming to save them from their inability to see what is evil and to distinguish evil activities from rightfulness.

In the second reading, James dwells on how we relate to others.  Consciously or unconsciously, we judge everything each day from the time we awake... we judge the day, food, people, especially loved ones and the poor.  The actions or appearance of our peers determines how we accept or reject them.  Instead, God looks at the hearts of His Children, not their clothes, money, job or social status.  We humans are capable of being deceitful and we use this ability to gain our selfish desires.  God, however,  judges our heart, not our appearance.

In the Gospel reading of Mark, we see the saving and healing power of God from Isaiah's prophetic teaching and James' teaching on living as a Christian.  Mark writes that Jesus takes the deaf and mute man away from the crowd.  When they are alone, Jesus puts his fingers in the man's ears, spits, touches his tongue and looks up to heaven and groans, and says, "Ephphatha!" - that is, "Be opened!"  These actions cure the man.  Jesus orders the man and the crowd not to tell anyone about the miracle.  The crowd and the man were so overjoyed that they couldn't stop telling others about what had happened.

Jesus' actions reveal the saving, healing and merciful power of God.  God found the heart of the deaf and mute man clean.  Therefore, he was worthy to receive the ability to hear and speak.  In our prayers and songs we ask God to create a clean heart in us because our heart holds our true feelings.  "It's the center of our love."



 ~ Image:  Jesus heals a deaf man by Alexandre Bida
Illustrations of the Life of Christ