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Bl. Idefonso Schuster (+1954) wrote about this 11th Sunday after Pentecost, “now the heavy clusters are taking on luscious color upon the smiling hills of the Roman Campagna.”
In our northern hemisphere, however you calculate their duration, we are deep into the Dog Days, the dies caniculares, when serious heat imposes on the terrestrial with the rising of Sirius in Canis Major. The other day it was 46°C (115°F) in Rome. In that blazing City the locals are in the period called Ferragosto, the ancient Feriae Augusti a festival initiated by the Emperor Augustus in 18 AD. The custom of a festival in this period endured doggedly into the era of the Papal States. The Romans today take their vacations at this time, seeking cool climes. In the Trastevere section of the Eternal City, mid-July’s appearance of the Dog Star brings in the week-long “Festa de’ Noantri… our festival” with a procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel through the streets and a return procession a week later on boats up the Tiber. This is far more pious, but a little less fun, than the annual foot race by white-coated waiters toting trays with a bottle and glasses. The summit of the Ferragosto time is 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, as you lovers of opera will recall is the date of the action of Pagliacci, as Tonio sings, “Per la Vergin pia de mezz’agosto!” It was long thought that the Dog Days portended the weather for rest of the year. For example:
Dog days bright and clear
Indicate a good year;
But when accompanied by rain,
We hope for better times in vain.
One might be forgiven for questioning the veracity of this doggerel.
All this is a blithe introduction to suggest that, in this time of the liturgical year, this green season after Pentecost, we are being treated by our Mother and Teacher, Holy Church, Mater et Magistra, how to harvest the fruits of our meditations on the great mysteries of salvation which we observe during the great festal cycles.
The Sunday Gospel is from Mark 7. At this point the Lord had gone into the Gentile region and fed the 5000. The baskets of food remaining recalled the number of the pagan tribes present when Moses came with the chosen people, thus pointing to Christ as the new Moses. Christ then returned to Gennesaret, walking part of the way on the water. After healing many people, including the Syrophoenician woman, we have the scene in our Gospel passage from Mark 7:31-37. People brought the deaf man to Jesus for Him to lay hands on him and heal him. Instead, Christ took him apart from the multitude “privately”. Since we have the description of what happened, at least one Apostle was surely with them, perhaps Peter who was Mark’s mentor. Christ…
put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
The fact that there is an Aramaic word here, “Ephphatha” points to the historical authenticity of the moment, recounted by an eye-witness.
The Eternal Word made flesh, touched the un-worded man’s gateways of words, ear and tongue. He must have been especially moved by the poor man’s condition, for when He prayed to the Father he didn’t use a word, rather, He “sighed”, Greek stenazo, some translations rendering it as “groaned”. Unvoiced a sigh, voiced a groan, either eay It was a heavy rush of breath, Christ’s ruach, His Spirit, Spirit that hovered dove-like over the chaos of the primal waters. With his healing, the man who had been deaf, whose speech was impeded, was like a new creation, something deeper than the mere healing of his defects. In Greek, Mark used dianoíxtheti, an aorist passive imperative of the verb dianoigo, in the 2nd person singular: “let you be opened”. Jesus didn’t command the ears and mouth to be opened, He commanded the man to be opened. As a result, “his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly” (v. 35).
Pope Benedict XVI talked about this healing in a 2012 Angelus address. For Benedict, Christ opened the whole person of the deaf and mute man.
“[The Word] became man so that man, made inwardly deaf and dumb by sin, would become able to hear the voice of God, the voice of love speaking to his heart, and learn to speak in the language of love, to communicate with God and with others.”
The healing was deeper than what the surface miracle suggests.
In the traditional Roman Rite for Baptism, the Ephphatha moment is echoed. The priest, using the same Aramaic word of our Lord, touches the ears and nostrils (proximate to the mouth) with some of his own saliva (which can be omitted) symbolically opening the inner man to receive what is being offered. The Ephphatha rite is no longer prescribed in the Novus Ordo ritual. It is only an option.
This powerful encounter in the Gospel, with the opening of man’s ears and loosing of his tongue, offers us an opportunity to reflect on our own use of our ears and tongue. Even nature suggests that we should perhaps talk less and listen more. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (+ 135 AD) quipped, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”.
St. Gregory Nazianzen (+390) says that half of all vices may be charged to the account of the tongue.
It would be better for many persons to have no tongue and to be dumb from their birth, for then they would be miserable only for this life, whereas owing to the sins of their tongue they plunge themselves into eternal damnation. Talk not inconsiderately, but bear in mind that you have to give an account of every idle word you speak.
How many sins could we avoid if we would bridle our tongues! Or, rather, sheath them. The 17th c. Protestant preach Thomas Brooks (+1680) said, our tongues can be likened to three fatal weapons, a razor, a sword and an arrow: the tongue slashes reputations, wounds deeply and can strike from afar.
By our speech we reveal our inner selves to others. Thus, Brooks:
When the Pumpe goes you may quickly know whether the water that is in the Fountain or Well, be clear or muddy, sweet or stinking; and when the clapper strikes, you may soon guess of what mettal the Bell is made of: and so by mens tongues you may easily guess what is in their hearts; if the tongue be vil’d, the heart is so; if the tongue be bloody, the heart is so; if the tongue be adulterous, the heart is so; if the tongue be malicious, the heart is so; if the tongue be covetous, the heart is so; and if the tongue be cruel, the heart is so, &c. Mens minds are known by their mouthes; if the mouth be bad, the mind is not good; he that is rotten in his talk, is commonly rotten in the heart. Of all the members of the body, there is none so serviceable to Satan as an evil tongue….
As I write, it is the Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori. Concerning silence, this moral theologian and Doctor of the Church wrote concerning silence and women religious (we could apply this to a certain TV network’s daytime show… or two…):
I have used the words to some defect; but when we speak too much we shall find that we have committed a thousand faults. St. James has called the tongue a universal evil: The tongue is . . . a world of iniquity. (James iii.6) For, as a learned author remarks, the greater number of sins arise from speaking or from listening to others. Alas! how many nuns shall we see condemned on the day of judgment, on account of having had but little regard for silence! And what is most to be deplored is, that the religious that dissipates her mind by intercourse with creatures, and by too much speaking, will never be able to see her defects, and thus she will go from bad to worse. A man full of tongue shall not be established in the earth. (Ps, xxxix. 12) The man that speaks too much shall walk without a guide, and therefore he shall fall into a thousand mistakes without the hope of ever perceiving them. Such a religious appears as if unable to live without speaking continually from morning till evening. She wishes to know what happens in the monastery and in the world; she goes about asking questions from all the others, and afterwards says, What evil am I doing? I answer you, dearly beloved sister, put an end to idle talk; endeavor to recollect yourself a little and you will see how many defects you have committed by the multitude of your words.
We don’t have to be religious in a convent or monastery to take this to heart.
Since I started with Rome and anecdotes, I end with an anecdote from my time in my Roman seminary, where the mercurial and, frankly quite voluble rector was wont to teach me Italian aphorisms, including, “Prima pensa, poi parla, perche parole poco pensate portano pena!” There are variations. Meaning: “First think, then speak, because words that have not been thought through bring punishment.” This derives from the fate of an ancient Athenian who offended a warrior and got himself killed as a result.
Take away: How many sins could I avoid, how many arguments and heartaches could have been avoided, if I just kept my mouth shut? Of course, I don’t mean staying silence when, especially by our position or vocation, we are obliged to speak up. I’m talking mostly about our daily dealings with our neighbors, our loved ones.