Thoughts on a Homily

Last weekend was the 23rd Sunday in ordinary time. The Gospel reading was Mark7:31-37 in which Christ healed the "deaf man, who had an impediment in his speech."

As part of his homily the priest homed in on the fact that Christ "took him aside in private, away from the crowd..."

I'd never taken any notice before of the fact Christ got him away from the hustle and bustle of the crowd and simply focussed on the miraculous healing.

The priest commented that sometimes we need to be alone and away from the crowd to hear God clearly.

I don't have an issue with that, but I have a more pragmatic interpretation. I'm hard of hearing (moderate to severe hearing loss) and I find it difficult to hear in noisy backgrounds, crowds being one of them.

An audiologist told me recently that to hear well in noisy backgrounds the brain needs two good ears.

I therefore think that one reason that Christ took him away from the crowd was that so this man who had never heard before would be able to hear Christ clearly and not have to compete with others crowding them in. The same comment would apply to his speaking for the first time.

This got me thinking a bit more about the healing. Apart from repairing whatever caused his problems in the first place, Christ would also have had to create neural pathways in the man's brain to accommodate his newfound faculties of speech and hearing. Older people who have cochlear implants take longer to learn to use them as they don't have preexisting neural pathways and less plasticity in their brain than younger people.

Then he would have had to fine tune the man's speaking apparatus which until now had probably only been able to make the guttural speech of the deaf. The vocal chords and larynx would have needed to become more flexible and melodius.

Christ would have "infused" sufficient languages skills, both speaking and interpreting, in four languages - Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Aquinas claimed that angels have "infused" knowledge - it is just given to them by God. They don't sit in cherub school reciting the times tables, although no doubt they learn from other angels and possibly even humans - did Albert Einstein's guardian angel lead Albert Einstein towards completing his mind games, or did the guardian angel learn something about the physics of this universe fom observing Albert Einstein?

Christ also made it clear He was healing both ears, possibly so the man could hear when the crowd caught up with him again.

All these things were done at a microscopic level and in the blink of an eye.

We take these miracles for granted sometimes and don't consider those things that have to be done to carry them out.