23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 6, 2009

Scripture Readings

First Is. 35:4-7a

Second Jas 2:1-5
Gospel Mk 7:31-37

Prepared by: Fr. Lawrence J. Donohoo, O.P.

1. Subject Matter
• First Reading: Courage can overcome fear because God, an active Creator and Savior who recreates
through his powerful love, overcomes human adversity and natural misfortune.
• Second Reading: Show no partiality toward the rich and mighty in (partial) imitation of God, who
actually shows a preference for the poor and dispossessed.
• Gospel: Jesus’ healing of a deaf man with speech impairment, which contains some surprising twists,
represents the high point of Jesus’ “successful” Galilean ministry and wins him startling praise.
2. Exegetical Notes
• “The words that express the crowd’s enthusiasm for Jesus (7:37) are taken from an apocalyptic section
of Isa, suggesting that in Jesus’ activities the kingdom of God is present.” “The crowd’s statement
alludes to Isa 35:5-6, which is part of a vision of Israel’s glorious future (Isa 34-35), related to Isa 40-
66. The use of this OT text here indicates that Israel’s glorious future is already present in Jesus’
ministry.” (NJBC)
• “This journey through largely Gentile territory may have been intended by Mark as an anticipation of
the church’s mission to the Gentiles.” (NJBC)
• “For the use of spittle in Jesus’ healing, see Mark 8:23; John 9:6. . . .looking up to heaven, he groaned.
The straightforward meaning of these actions is that Jesus prayed to God and was moved with
compassion for the man.” (NJBC)
• “Jesus’ prohibition of talking about the cure is probably part of Mark’s insistence that Jesus is more
than a healer and that his full identity will be revealed only in the cross and resurrection. The
prohibition has the opposite effect. The reaction of the crowd gives witness to the reality of the cure,
while underlining the theme of Jesus’ identity.” (NJBC)
3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• 1504 Often Jesus asks the sick to believe. He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of
hands, mud and washing. The sick try to touch him, “for power came forth from him and healed them
all.” And so in the sacraments Christ continues to “touch” us in order to heal us.
• 1818 The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of
every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to
the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of
abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is
preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.
• 1151 In his preaching the Lord Jesus often makes use of the signs of creation to make known the
mysteries of the Kingdom of God. He performs healings and illustrates his preaching with physical
signs or symbolic gestures. He gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant, above
all to the Exodus and the Passover, for he himself is the meaning of all these signs.
• 517 Christ’s whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the
blood of his cross, but this mystery is at work throughout Christ’s entire life: already in his Incarnation
through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty; in his hidden life which by his
submission atones for our disobedience; in his word which purifies its hearers; in his healings and
exorcisms by which “he took our infirmities and bore our diseases”; and in his Resurrection by which
he justifies us.
4. Patristic Commentary
• “He takes the deaf and dumb man who was brought to him apart from the crowd that he might not do
his divine miracles openly, thus teaching us to cast away vain glory and swelling of heart. For no one
can work miracles as well as the one who loves humility and is lowly in his conduct. But [Christ] puts
his fingers into his ears when he could have cured him with a word in order to show that his body,
being united to the Deity, was consecrated by divine virtue with all that he did. For since on account of
the transgression of Adam, whereby human nature had incurred much suffering and hurt in its
members and senses, Christ’s coming into the world showed the perfection of human nature in
himself. And for this reason he opened ears with his fingers and gave the power of speech by his
spittle.” (Pseudo-Chrysostom)
• “A city, however, placed on a hill cannot be hid, and lowliness always comes before glory . Wherefore
it goes on, the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they proclaimed it.” (Pseudo-
Jerome)
5. Quotations of Pope Benedict XVI

• “In the normal way of things, a God who loses his land, who leaves his people defeated, and is unable
to protect his sanctuary, is a God who has been overthrown. He has no more say in things. He vanishes
from history. When Israel went into exile, quite astonishingly, the opposite happened. The stature of
this God, the way he was completely different from the other divinities in the religions of the world,
was now apparent, and the faith of Israel at last took on its true form and stature.”
• “We know that this God exists, and hence that this power to ‘take away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1:29)
is present in the world. Through faith in the existence of this power, hope for the world’s healing has
emerged in history. It is, however, hope—not yet fulfillment; hope that gives us the courage to place
ourselves on the side of good even in seemingly hopeless situations, aware that, as far as the external
course of history is concerned, the power of sin will continue to be a terrible presence.”
• “Even when we are fully aware that Heaven far exceeds what we can merit, it will always be true that
our behavior is not indifferent before God and therefore is not indifferent for the unfolding of history.
We can open ourselves and the world and allow God to enter: we can open ourselves to truth, to love,
to what is good. This is what the saints did, those who, as ‘God’s fellow workers,’ contributed to the
world’s salvation. . . .We can uncover the sources of creation and keep them unsullied, and in this way
 we can make a right use of creation, which comes to us as a gift, according to its intrinsic requirements
and ultimate purpose. . . . So on the one hand, our actions engender hope for us and for others; but at
the same time, it is the great hope based upon God’s promises that gives us courage and directs our
action in good times and bad.”
• “We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to
avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves
the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which
there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the
greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our
capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who
suffered with infinite love.”
• “By cultivating openness to life, wealthy peoples can better understand the needs of poor ones, they
can avoid employing huge economic and intellectual resources to satisfy the selfish desires of their
own citizens, and instead, they can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production that is
morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and
every individual.”
• “It was timely when Paul VI in Populorum Progressio insisted that the economic system itself would
benefit from the wide-ranging practice of justice, inasmuch as the first to gain from the development
of poor countries would be rich ones. According to the Pope, it was not just a matter of correcting
dysfunctions through assistance. The poor are not to be considered a ‘burden,’ but a resource.’”

6. Other Considerations
• To hope is to imagine what, God willing, we will have in the future in a real way. If to hope is to
imagine what we do not yet have, to imagine is already to possess in an anticipated what we hope to
have. For something is necessary that lies between seeing and blindness, and so we need to envision
the objects of our hope–an activity which is intimately bound with hope. More exactly, we need to
replace our expectations with envisioning. Here Isaiah, the greatest visionary of the Prior Covenant,
can come to our aid.
• Refusing to play off the present against the future, or so-called realism against idealism, Isaiah taught
us that prophecy is less a matter of foretelling than it is of fore-seeing. He teaches us that God is not a
sheer realist, but a dreamer and idealist as well. The very world God created testifies to both, and the
world to come is evidence for the “divine imagination.” Indeed, Scriptural idealism is simply the
forecast of the reality to come, when what we hoped for will be in our very grasp.
• “He has done all things well.” But this high praise of Jesus will not remain. Chapter 8, after beginning
with the sensational miracle of the loaves and fishes, effects a startling reversal: Jesus’ insistence on
keeping sacred words and deeds away from the limelight, his first prediction of the passion, the rebuke
of Peter, and the difficult requirements of cross-bearing discipleship. There two new principles of
success will be introduced: thinking as God does, and losing one’s life in order to follow Christ. Here,
then, is the place to begin inquiry: what is Christian success? What does it mean to do all things well?
Being Christian does not excuse us from grappling with the question of being successful and becoming
successful ourselves; if anything, it makes the question of success more pressing by raising it to the
level of grace and submitting it to the expectations of God.
• Two ironies are to be noted. Jesus heals the deaf mute, but then forbids him (apparently included in
“them”) to proclaim what God has done for him. “It is obedience that I desire, not sacrifice.” But the
healed man—or at least his friends—misuse the healed senses—to proclaim Jesus’ praises!
• If we are to share in the success of Christ, we would do well to imitate his example, to do what he did,
not precisely as he did it, but precisely with the grace and virtues by which he lived his life. But even
this does not suffice, for our lives are unique. With respect to Jesus as well as to each other, we each
live in a different world, possess differing gifts and talents, come from different backgrounds.
Imitating Christ by practicing his virtues is indispensable, but not sufficient. We need to be on the
same road as he--the way of the cross and the way of the resurrection.
• “Jesus took [the deaf man] off by himself away from the crowd. It is in our prayerful solitude with
Jesus, where we give him our full attention, secluded from all the distractions, diversions, and
seductions of the crowd’ that we experience his tender mercy and healing love. For Jesus is never
content simply to fix the problems others put before him. His miracles are a way of drawing those in
need into a union of friendship with himself.” (Cameron)

Recommended Resources
Benedict XVI. Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI. Edited by Peter John Cameron. Yonkers:
Magnificat, 2006.
____________. Caritas in veritate.
____________. Spe salvi.
Brown, Raymond A., Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy, eds. The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1990.
Cameron, Peter John. To Praise, To Bless, To Preach - Cycle B. Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1999.
Thomas Aquinas, St. Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels. Works of the Fathers. Vol. 2.
London, 1843. Reprinted by The St. Austin Press, 1997.