Be Opened!

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's
Homily for September 6, 2009
[23 SUNDAY in ORDINARY TIME, CYCLE B]
Is 35:4-7a; Jas 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

With today’s Gospel reading we enter into a central part of Mark’s Gospel. The section begins with the healing of a deaf man and ends with the healing of a blind man. These are not just miracle stories about Jesus’ power but have a teaching purpose. Here in today’s gospel, a man is brought for Jesus to heal. He was deaf and he had an impediment in his speech.

The healing process that Jesus uses is almost like a ritual and, in fact, it was. Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ear and puts spittle (saliva) on his tongue. In Mark 8:23 he puts spittle on a blind man’s eyes and he is healed.

You know, as a side note, saliva actually contains a chemical that aids in the healing of wounds. It is called histatin. And even though the mouth is full of bacteria, wounds in the mouth heal much more quickly than those in other locations, such as the skin and bones. Saliva has also been discovered to contain many proteins with antibodies that work against infection. A protein called lysozyme can actually break down bacteria and neutralize it. I guess moms must know this instinctively, because how many of us have been mortified as a child, when our moms spit-cleaned a smudge or a cut on us, because there was no water available? Notice how God seems to have made everything good?

So, Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ear and puts spittle on his tongue. At the same time He looked heavenward – to his Father – and said, in Aramaic, "Ephphatha!, Be opened!".
Immediately the man was healed: he could hear and speak perfectly. The people around him were astounded. They cried out almost in chorus: "He has done all things well; he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak." They were echoing the lovely words from Isaiah in our First Reading: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy." This is to indicate that the future promised by the prophet Isaiah has now arrived in Jesus.

The WAY that Jesus heals the man is a model to us of the Sacrament of Baptism. Through the gift of faith which precedes adult Baptism, our ears are opened to hear the Word of God and our tongues are loosened to speak about Christ to others. It is part of the baptism ceremony for the priest or deacon to touch the ears and the mouth of the person being baptized. This is during the prayer called the Ephphatha prayer which goes:
“The Lord made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. May He soon touch your ears to receive his word and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father”

Baptism is a sign of our incorporation into the Body of Christ, his Church. It involves a total commitment on our part to the way of life that Jesus calls us to follow. A central part of that commitment is a growing openness to hear what Jesus says to us and a growing ability to be able to share our faith with others. Unlike the man in the Gospel story we don’t normally find ourselves immediately endowed with these gifts.

If we are honest, many of us are not very good at either listening or speaking, where God is concerned. Some have even stopped hearing. In catechism class they heard all about the 7 sacraments, the 10 commandments of God, the 7 deadly sins and they now feel there is nothing more to learn.

They may not realize it but they have become deaf! And, being deaf, they cannot speak either. They have nothing of worth to say, nothing to share. And it is not infrequent to meet Catholics who are highly qualified in their secular profession but are basically illiterate in their faith. What really is distressing is that, in their ignorance, they are often not slow to pontificate on what Catholicism is about.

Others, though, are good at listening. They want to know more about the meaning of Jesus and his Gospel in the changing circumstances of their lives. But they, too, though good at hearing may do very little speaking, very little sharing. Yet, to hear the Word of God and not to proclaim it is, in the mind of the Gospel writer, a contradiction. As Jesus pointed out in Matthew 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

In the Gospel, to really hear the Word of God is to carry it out. "Hearing" implies: listening, understanding, making the message one’s own and living it out in word and action.
Although Jesus tried to stop the man in today’s Gospel from telling others, the cured man and all those around proclaimed what had happened everywhere they went. Really they just had to do it. After all, he was now hearing and he was now able to share with others what he had heard and experienced. If we were really excited about the Good News of Jesus Christ, if we were as excited as the deaf man after he was cured, if we were really excited about the experience of having the Catholic vision of life, we would have to do exactly the same.

If we were like the disciples after Pentecost, if our being Christian was truly a deep and impacting experience and not just a set of doctrines to be conformed to, we too could not keep ourselves from letting other people know.

The problem is that for a long time we have been told that our religion is something personal between ourselves and God: being morally good, keeping in the state of grace, going to Church at fixed times and receiving the Sacraments. But our faith is more than that.

Have we heard Jesus talking to us, giving us the message yet? Have we, for instance, heard today’s Second Reading? How do we treat different kinds of people in our society? If we are honest, we know that there have been times when we have treated people in exactly the way James describes: excessively eager to our well-off friends or people we think are important and off-hand and even rude to strangers, especially those who are obviously at the lower rung of society.

What are our attitudes to wealth and poverty?
Which people do we regard as really rich and enriching?
What kind of wealth are we in pursuit of?

Our answers to these questions will tell us how much we have really heard the Word of God. They will also tell us how we communicate to others by our words and our actions and attitudes.
Yes, we are often deaf and we are often dumb. We have lost the capacity both to hear and to speak. We have lost the ability to recognize the voice of God calling to us in the many changing situations of life, both good and bad.

Jesus took him away from the crowd. He touched his ears and his mouth and said, "Be open". And the man left singing the praises of God to the world.

There is a great deal of noise in our lives, but not just in the sense of sound. There is noise in the sense of disturbance--like static on the phone line. The radio, the TV, the phone, the kids, the neighbors, those driving down the street with their radios on overkill, are all audio noises, but there is also noise or disturbance, created by the continual worrying about tomorrow, the hanging on to the issues of the past. Noise.

Noise in our lives: "Did you see what she was wearing to Church? Guess who just broke up? Noise, all of it Noise. Mom, Dad, can I have.....? can I go......? would you buy me......?” Arguments over who played what role in a movie, or who did what on a sports team, or what to have for dinner or where to go. The phone rings, "You have a tremendous opportunity to save money now by having your driveway resurfaced this week." Or “We have a special offer, we can let you have one year of three magazines for price of just one.” While the TV rumbles in the background offering a cream to make you look 10 years younger, a device that will save you time when you plant your garden, a work from home opportunity that will have you making thousands of dollars a week within 1 month. NOISE, ALL NOISE.

And Jesus took the man away from the crowd, away from the noise. He took him to have a personal encounter with the Messiah. He calls us away from the crowd, away from the noise to his quiet.

Quiet before the Lord is so important.
--Just a few moments before Mass,
--out of respect for the presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament,
--out of respect for the needs of others to get away from the noise,
--out of respect for our own need to listen to the Lord in the quiet.

Quiet in our homes.
--Fifteen minutes of quiet, before the morning gets going,
--or after the kids are in bed,
--or together as a family,
--just a little time to get away from the noise.
-- A little time with the Lord so he can touch us
-- A little time to read the scriptures
-- A little time to listen to his voice
-- A little time to enjoy his presence
-- A little time to enjoy his creation in a sunrise or a lightning storm or in a clear night’s sky

He touched the man's ears and he said, "Be opened."
He calls us to hear.
Hear the still small voice Elijah heard,.
Hear the whisper of Christ on the cross, telling us that even in the darkest moments of our lives that He will be there to help us get through it.
Hear the voice of Mary, reassuring the concerned wine steward at the wedding feast of Cana, and reassuring us, saying, "Do whatever he tells you."
Hear the voice of our conscience within, calling us to the new life of the Lord's love, calling us to holiness.
Hear the Word of God alive in the scriptures proclaimed in the Church
He touched the man's mouth and said, "Be opened".
He tells us not to be afraid to stand up for our beliefs and our lifestyle, even if we are told that we are not in concert with modern society.
He says that he needs our voices. He needs us to proclaim that he is indeed alive and with us.
He opens our mouths to proclaim his praise to the world.

He drew the man away from the crowd. He touched his ears and his mouth and he said, "Be opened." And the man left proclaiming the love of God.
He touched him.
He wants to touch us.


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

I invite you to join us for our 3rd Annual Jeff Cavins Bible Study at the Church of Epiphany in Coon Rapids, MN. We begin on September 14, 2009. There will be two 10 week sessions. The first study will be "Adventure in Revelation" a study of the Book of Revelation, September 14 through November 16 2009, Monday evenings from 7:00 to 9:00PM in the Church. This study has been granted the Imprimatur by Justin Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia. The second study will be "Catholicism 101" and will be held January 11 through March 15 2010, again on Monday evenings from 7:00 to 9:00PM. Click here to go to Epiphany's web site and to get more information and register. Registration is open from now through August 15.


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

A Great Place to Find Peace

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's
Homily for March 8, 2009
2nd SUNDAY in Lent, CYCLE B

In the past several months we’ve all encountered in our lives things that have added most likely immense stress. Perhaps you’ve either seen people laid off from their jobs at your work, or worse, you’ve been laid off. If you’re saving for retirement you may have seen your 401K nosedive about 50%. If you have credit cards, you may have seen the interest rate on them double and even triple even though you’ve been making your payments on time. You probably have noticed things becoming tighter and tighter in your budget as the costs begin to creep up. With all this stress, you may have noticed that people are more easily angered, quick to retort or even “looking for a fight”. Life seems to have sped up, with the weeks seeming to fly by without a chance to catch up on the important things – like quiet time and peaceful moments.

Do you feel that you need a place to go and just be quiet, a place where no one will try to ask you questions or tell you about the miseries of daily life? Where no one will try to tell you what to do?

That place exists. It’s in the chapel behind you, the place we call the Adoration Chapel. In it we take the time to just be quiet, to just relax in God’s hands, to allow you a moment of peace in this world. There you can let Him take care of you for that moment, let him soothe you with His loving embrace, let Him calm you with His peace. It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except during Mass) and it is there that He waits for you.

I know, I know, some of you are saying to yourself, “When in my day do I have time for that?” OR “That’s that prayer thing again, it’s just not for me”, OR “I can do that at home, why should I come here?”

Well, in answer to those, 1) you have time for anything you make a priority and shouldn’t peace and calm in your life be a priority? Or do you like having that background anger and stress roll about you all day? 2) Yes it is that prayer thing, but isn’t that what we are about? Isn’t that why you’re here today? Yes – prayer is for you, it is talking to God, and if you can’t talk to God about your life, who do you know that can help you and that you CAN talk to? And 3) yes you can do this at home, but it won’t be in that wonderful, amazing, beautiful presence of the most awesome person, the one who died for us when we didn’t deserve it. Here you can be face to face with God, something you can’t do anywhere else. Here you can talk directly to him in his physical presence, and He will listen.
We are fortunate here at Epiphany to have perpetual Adoration. Here we have Jesus available for that peaceful moment every day, every hour. But the only reason we have it is because a lot of people have signed up to take one hour a week, 1 hour out of 168 hours in that week, that comes out to 6 tenths of 1 percent of the week to spend it here in the Adoration Chapel on a regular basis so that others may also enjoy that peace, that tranquility, that moment of calm in their week.
What we are asking you to do, is try this out. Sign up to spend an hour in Jesus’ presence in either prayer or silence or reading. This hour that you spend with Jesus can be spent in any way you want –with your own favorite prayer book, reading the Scriptures, praying the Rosary, speaking to Jesus heart to heart as one does with a friend, or you may be so tired, troubled or worn out that you may just want to sit and relax and enjoy the peace that comes from simply being in his presence.
You may find that you want to spend your hour there in the night time, as that may be the only time you have available. This time spent there at night is especially peaceful and strengthening. You may find it more restful than some of the fitful sleeping you get at night.

Remember that sacrifice is the language of love. Christ sacrificed his life so that we might gain eternal life with Him. Here we can take a moment of that time and perhaps sacrifice an hour of our sleep to be with him.

Jesus wants nothing more than a chance to be with you, to listen to you and to talk to you. The least you can do is give him that chance. Give it a try, see what benefits your life will receive, if only 1 hour of peace and quiet.

I want to thank you for the wonderful response that you make today and leave you with one thought. We all hope one day to see God the Father face to face. On that day He will welcome his children with open arms and embrace them and spend eternity loving and caring for His children. What a chance to now to begin that relationship.


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce