Deacon Tom Anthony

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 128

Reading 1 Is 35:4-7a

Thus says the LORD:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe.
The burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10

R. (1b) Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.
The God of Jacob keeps faith forever,
secures justice for the oppressed,
gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets captives free.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD gives sight to the blind;
the LORD raises up those who were bowed down.
The LORD loves the just;
the LORD protects strangers.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.
The fatherless and the widow the LORD sustains,
but the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The LORD shall reign forever;
your God, O Zion, through all generations.
Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.

Reading 2 Jas 2:1-5

My brothers and sisters, show no partiality
as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
For if a man with gold rings and fine clothes
comes into your assembly,
and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in,
and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes
and say, “Sit here, please, ”
while you say to the poor one, “Stand there, ” or “Sit at my feet, ”
have you not made distinctions among yourselves
and become judges with evil designs?

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.
Did not God choose those who are poor in the world
to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom
that he promised to those who love him?

Alleluia Cf. Mt 4:23

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdom
and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Mk 7:31-37

Again Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis.
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” —
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it.
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

 The Prophet Isaiah announced,

“Here is your God, he comes with vindication.”

This means that God is here with us now and forever. Our Creator and Our Father loves us so much and is so invested in our lives that He has chosen to enter into a personal relationship with us where we can receive all the benefits of His love. He never stops trying to bring us closer to Him and He never stops trying to reveal to us a better way of how we can live our lives. Through the Prophet Isaiah, He reveals that it is through Him and through Jesus Christ that we are able to see the world as it really is, permeating with His love. If we are open to the experience of His love, then we will then understand that He is here to save us from a life that can never be as fulfilling and joyous as one that involves Him.

It is through Jesus Christ that we are drawn to the Father. When we accept the truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our savior, our ears and eyes are then open to this new reality. It is a reality centered in the truth. This act of acceptance brings about continuous revelation and a stream of wisdom which flows into us from the Father then bursts forth into the world around us. We are affected and then everything else that we interact with is also affected as a result. We are fundamentally joined with the rest of God’s Creation where before we separated from it by our own choice and the choices we made in our life without the presence of God. We will then find ourselves participators in the Holy Trinity.

We all come to Jesus Christ wounded and broken. No one is better and no one is worse. In fact, those who found themselves in a lesser position in this society based on their wealth and the perceptions of others are more apt to understand and receive Jesus Christ more readily than others. The wealth of this world is a disadvantage when experiencing the wealth of God. Jesus himself said that no man can serve two masters. The master of materialism and material wealth, Satan, needs to be separated from our thoughts and actions so that the only thing that remains is Jesus. He then becomes our one and only master and one we will be more open to answering to because He can be recognized as the one who we have pledged to serve completely.

In service to Jesus Christ is beautiful. What we will be working for through Him is something that will last forever. This is what a life with Jesus Christ is: an eternity filled with joy that we will be participators in and have an impact on through our own actions and thoughts. We have received a promise from Jesus Christ: our actions will have fruitful consequences in this life and the next. Nothing can be negative with Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate good so there is an impossibility of bad. Not many things are guaranteed in this life but this is. In fact, the more we strip ourselves of the things that this world offers, the more we will be able to receive good things from it. These things are things that can only come from God. The less focused we are on the measures of success laid out to us by this world, the more we will be able to be in tune with the successes we can accomplish with Jesus Christ. If we strive to lead our lives in this manner, the successes with Jesus will then make us comprehend what He really wants for us in this life and the next. Molding our lives around this will then allow us to know that we are loved and with that love the capability of us loving everyone and everything will increase, leading to an overwhelming peace and satisfaction in all of our thoughts and actions.

Deacon Tom