Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time/B
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Mk 7:31-37) Jesus heals a deaf-mute by taking him away from the crowd, touching his ears and tongue and saying ‘Effatà’, ‘Open up!’. In that deaf-mute we can find each one of us. In fact, we find ourselves with incapabilities, with impediments, with ‘blockages’ that affect our inner life. And often these incapacities come from our history, from our ancestral relationships.
Somehow, we find ourselves with burdens to bear that we did not choose, and they are not even something we deserve for our behaviour.
The Lord can ‘heal’ us, dissolve our blockages if, like the deaf-mute, we let Him touch us, if we slowly become capable of standing before the Lord with our weakness, with what is not working in our lives, despite all our efforts.
Standing before the Lord with our weakness means accepting it, no longer hiding it from ourselves and others, slowly becoming aware that our weakness is the privileged place to meet the Lord, to know ourselves, to live in truth.
The Offertory Antiphon of today’s celebration is taken from chapter 9 of the Book of Daniel (Dan 9:4, 17. 19), with the following text:
“Oravi ad Dominum Deum meum ego Daniel, dicens:
Exaudi, Domine, preces servi tui:
illumina faciem tuam super sanctuarium tuum:
et propitius intende populum istum,
super quem invocatum est nomen tuum, Deus.”
(I prayed to my God, I, Daniel, and I said:
Hearken, O Lord, unto the prayers of your servant,
and cause your face to shine upon your sanctuary;
look with forgiveness upon this nation
over whom your name has been invoked, O God).
The attached music is by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), and comes from the book of ‘Offertoria totius anni’ published in Rome in 1593 (Offertoria totius anni [Romae, Apud Franciscum Coattinum, 1593]). The live performance is by the Pontifical Musical Chapel “Sistina” at the Papal Celebration for the Canonisation of Mother Teresa, 4 September 2016.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
