BE OPENED

A SERMON FOR THE 11TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

With the single word Ephphatha, our Lord cures the deaf man, opening his ears and introducing him to a world of sound and noise.  We may legitimately wonder how this man was able to deal with his new life, to differentiate between what is sound and what is noise. And we may apply this thought also to ourselves, acknowledging any guilt there may be in that department.

As we go about our daily business we hear a lot of things.  We hear many unpleasant sounds, like jack hammers or rock music, and we cover our ears.  We call these sounds “noise” and that’s all they are.  The normal person has no interest in listening to noise.  We don’t pull up a chair and smoke our pipe as we listen to workmen digging up the street.  When we hear the vile noise that some people call “music”, we should, if we have any culture or sense of beauty at all, be equally repulsed. 

At other times the things we hear are not so painfully loud, but we still don’t want to hear them because they have no interest for us.  When we hear the jabber of commercials coming from our car radio or TV, when we pass people talking in the street, we’re not interested in what they’re saying, and so our mind relegates it to the category of noise and we block it out to focus on other more interesting things.

What does morality have to do with all this?  First of all, we must recognize that God is not going to be offended by what we happen to hear.  God is interested only in our reaction to it.  In other words, not in what we hear, but what we listen to.  If we accidentally overhear a few words of someone’s private conversation, good manners, charity, and the good Lord himself expect that we will move away.  Sin enters in when we put our ear to the keyhole to listen.  We expect privacy and take the means to protect it, and we should be equally careful in preserving the privacy of our neighbor from our own tendencies to be curious or nosy.  

When our Lord opens up the ears of the deaf man, it is not so that he can misuse his hearing by listening to things that lead him into sin.  And let’s face it, we can very easily sin by deliberately listening to bad conversations.  Even if we don’t participate in them ourselves, even if we don’t take pleasure in them, we should realize that we are in the near occasion of sin and should take the necessary steps to distance ourselves or change the subject if possible. This rule applies especially to conversations and situations over which we do have complete control and can easily escape—in other words, what we hear on television and the internet—where all we have to do is fast forward or change the channel.

It’s not just the sixth commandment we can sin against by listening to bad talk.  What about  blasphemous talk against God?  Do we listen to shows that attack our holy faith?  Remember, this can be done not just openly, blatantly, but also in far more subtle ways that affect our thinking about faith and morals?  TV and Hollywood, for example, always seem to  portray priests and nuns these days as immoral.  Not that such priests and nuns don’t exist, but the entire mindset of the media today has swung to the opposite extreme from the earlier stereotypical depiction of priests and nuns as wise, good-natured, sympathetic people, cool even (think of Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman in Bells of St. Mary’s).  We must realize that we are being fed the latest liberal anti-God propaganda, and that it is affecting the way we think.  We must remember too that such propaganda has been very effective, and that the bigger the lie the more forcefully the mass media will promote it.  How else did a Catholic country like Ireland vote overwhelmingly in support of same-sex marriage?  We listen to all the rubbish being spoken on this subject, we’re exposed to a whole new gamut of “sympathetic characters” with their unnatural vices, and before we know it, we’re starting to go beyond the mere toleration of evil to its acceptance, and then to its active encouragement.  Did God really give us ears so that we can listen to the brainwashing techniques of his enemies?  Be aware of what passes through your ears and ends up sinking into your mind.  And let us not smugly believe we’re beyond such techniques.  What about the more vulnerable minds of our children?  What are they hearing in school?  In their cartoons on TV?  The attack begins early, be very careful.

Then there’s gossip.  And by gossip, I don’t mean the harmless observations we tend to make about other people and their behavior.  I’m talking about the eighth commandment that forbids calumny and detraction.  Do we listen deliberately to tales told about the secret sins of others, things that are none of our business and that we’d be better off not knowing.  Treat these conversations with the same reaction as you would if you were hearing filth.  Walk away, change the subject, or if you can’t do either, contribute to the conversation by pointing out the positive characteristics of the person being gossiped about.  Do what you can to protect his or her reputation. Do anything other than just sitting there listening with a blank smile of acceptance on your face.

There are many ways, then, that we can sin by listening to things we shouldn’t listen to.  There’s a reverse side to this coin though, and that is when we don’t listen to things we shouldlisten to.  This is where we our ears truly should be open, as per the command of our Lord, Ephphatha!  We must remember we have the responsibility to know certain things.  That means we have to listen to the right people at the right time.  Who are these people?  Those who know more than we do about the things we belong knowing.  Children must listen to their parents, students to their teachers.  Citizens must listen to the laws of the land, Catholics to the teachings of our Church. If we don’t listen, if we deliberately choose to remain ignorant, we have to realize that any sins we commit as a result of that deliberate ignorance are not excusable.  Are our ears open or closed to the Church’s laws, for example, on natural birth control, the so-called rhythm method?  Before practicing anything like that, married couples have the obligation to know the circumstances under which it is permitted.  Ignorance is no excuse, and souls are endangered daily by the refusal of couples to listen to what the Church says on the matter.

There are many other circumstances when we do have the tendency to want to close our ears.  I see it all the time in people who will not listen when they are told the truths of the traditional Catholic faith, or the truths of traditional Catholic morality. And the main reason they don’t want to listen is because they are afraid of the consequences.  What consequences?  Simply put, they fear having to face the change in their lifestyle they would be obliged to follow if they listened and believed.  The divorced do not want to face the impossibility of not being able to remarry, the parishioners at the Novus Ordo or local Protestant churches don’t want to be put in the position of having to leave all their friends behind and attend Mass outside the stability and comforts of their institutionalized religions.  So they refuse to listen to what’s right.  And by that refusal they are all the more responsible for the wrong they do.

Our Blessed Lord has two reactions towards those of us who are refusing some aspect of the truth.  First he looks up to heaven and he sighs.  He is exasperated at the foolishness of those who have the truth presented to them, but won’t even listen.  And then he says Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.  He gives us not only the grace of the truth, but he gives us also the grace to hear it and react appropriately.  Most importantly of all, he gives us the grace to deal with all the inconvenient consequences. But like all decisions in this life, we have free will and must choose ourselves whether we will listen or not. All good things come from above, all good things including the Truth.  Let’s not bury our heads in the sand and refuse to hear it.  If we do, we should know what to expect and where we’re going to find ourselves when we finally pull our heads out and look around. By all means, let’s be like the second of the three wise monkeys, the one with his hands over his ears, who hears no evil.  Let’s do our very best to hear no evil.  But when the time comes to hear what is good, let’s unplug those ears and listen up.