Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Be Opened: Learning to Hear God and Speak Hope

There is something very personal about this Gospel. Jesus does not heal the man in front of the crowd. He takes him aside — away from the noise, away from the eyes, away from the pressure. And that alone tells us something about how God often works, because sometimes God does His deepest work in us not in the big public moments, but in the quiet ones. The early Church Father St. Bede reflected on this Gospel and said something very beautiful: when Jesus opens the man’s ears and loosens his tongue, He is showing us what salvation really looks like. First, we learn to hear God. Then, we learn to speak about Him. And honestly, that makes sense. Because if we are not listening to God, we usually end up speaking our fears, our frustrations, our opinions, and our wounds. But when we begin to really hear God — through Scripture, through prayer, through the Eucharist — something changes inside us.

Then comes this moment in the Gospel that is deeply moving. Jesus looks up to heaven and He sighs. St. Bede said that sigh matters because it shows us the heart of Christ. He sighs because He sees what sin and suffering have done to humanity. He sighs because He is carrying us — all of us — toward healing. And I think that matters for us to hear, because sometimes we imagine God is frustrated with us, disappointed in us, or distant from us. But this Gospel shows us something else: He is moved by us, He is moved toward us, and He is moved with compassion. Then Jesus says one word: “Be opened.” And that is not just for that man. That is for us. Be opened to hearing God’s voice instead of just the noise of the world. Be opened to hope instead of fear. Be opened to grace instead of shame.

This Gospel has always been connected to Baptism. Even today, in the Baptism rite, there is an optional prayer called the Ephphatha prayer, where the priest touches the ears and mouth and prays that the person may hear the Word of God and proclaim it. Because this miracle is really about what God wants to do in every soul: open our ears so we can recognize His voice, and loose our tongues so we can speak words that give life. Maybe today the prayer is very simple: Lord, open whatever is closed in me — the places that are afraid, the places that are hardened, the places that have stopped listening. If we let Him, He will do exactly what He did in this Gospel. He will meet us personally, heal us gently, and open us to a life that is bigger than fear and stronger than anything that has silenced us. When we let Christ open our hearts, we begin to hear grace everywhere and speak hope into the world.