Presence of God

Grant, O Lord, that the grace of holy Baptism may reach its full development in me.

Meditation

I. The healing of the deaf-mute, as narrated in today’s Gospel (Mc. 7, 31-37), is a figure of baptismal grace. We, too, were once taken before Jesus in a condition similar to that of the poor man in Galilee. We were deaf and dumb in the life of the spirit, and Jesus, in the person of the priest, welcomed us lovingly at the baptismal font. The priest made the same gesture over us and said the same word as did the divine Master in the Gospel : "Ephpheta," "Be thou opened!" From that moment the hearing of our soul was opened to faith and our tongue was loosed to give praise to God. We were enabled to listen to the voice of faith—to the exterior voice of the teaching Church and to the interior voice of the Holy Spirit, urging us to do good; from that moment, we could open our lips in prayer : in praise, adoration, and petition. But later the noise of the world deafened and distracted us; likewise, the tumult of our passions deadened our capacity to listen to the voice of God. Then, too, idle conversations about worldly things and great anxiety over various events in our life have left us unable to pray sincerely and earnestly. But Jesus wishes to renew the grace of our Baptism today and to repeat the all-powerful word "Ephpheta." How greatly we need Him to reopen our ears to His voice and to make us more attentive and sensitive to His call! "In the morning He wakeneth my ear that I may hear Him as a master; I do not resist, I have not gone back," says Isaias (Is. 50, 4-5). This is the grace we must ask of Our Lord today, that we may not only hear His voice, but may follow it, without resistance. The more faithfully we follow it, the more sensitive we shall become to its slightest whisper. At the same time let us ask for the grace of always being ready to give praise to the Lord, to call upon His mercy, to ask His pardon humbly, accusing ourselves of our faults sincerely and with sorrow.

II. Those who were present when Jesus performed this miracle wondered at it, saying, "He hath done all things well; He hath made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak." Certainly, Jesus has done all things well; He has arranged everything in the best way possible for our sanctification. He has prepared for us all the graces we need, and not only in sufficient measure, but even superabundantly. Unfortunately, however, we do not always cooperate with His grace; many times pride, egoism, and all our other uncontrolled passions turn to evil what God has planned for our good. If we had accepted lovingly and with resignation that difficulty, that trial, or disappointment which God had permitted for the sole purpose of providing us with an opportunity to practice virtue, we should have made great progress; but by giving way to impatience, by protesting and complaining, we rather added to our failures and infidelities. We should cooperate with grace more readily and strive to maintain our soul in an attitude of open docility to all the invitations to virtue which God is continually sending us by means of the different circumstances of life.

Today’s Mass, and especially the Epistle (1Co. 15, 1-10), offers us a splendid model of cooperation with grace. It is St. Paul, the Apostle, who in his humility calls himself "the least of the Apostles," who says most sincerely : "By the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace in me hath not been void." St. Paul realizes that, if he became an Apostle, instead of the persecutor which he had been, it was not because of his own merits, but solely by the grace of God; he attributes nothing to himself, but all to God. At the same time, he is conscious of his personal correspondence, the Correspondence which is always the fruit of grace, but which also includes, as an indispensible element, our free adherence to it. Consequently, we must have an attitude of profound humility as the basis of our correspondence to grace; that is, we must clearly realize that whatever good is in us is due only to God. This attitude of humility must be accompanied by a voluntary, continual assent of our will to God’s invitations. We cannot give this assent without the help ofgrace, and yet it depends on us; it is entirely in our hands. Therefore, like St. Paul, we can attribute nothing to our own merits, but should say with him, "By the grace of God, I am what I am." Our willing adhesion to grace, however, will give us the right to add, "and His grace in me hath not been void." But only steady, faithful, generous adhesion will give us that right.

Colloquy

"Henceforth, O Lord, it is You alone whom I love, follow, seek, and serve; You alone have the right to command, and to You alone do I wish to be subject. Command, I beg You, and demand of me anything You wish; heal and open my ears, that I may hear Your commands; cure and open my eyes, that I may see the signs of Your will; take away my dullness that I may be able to contemplate You, and thus, I hope, accomplish faithfully whatever You ask of me.

"O God and most merciful Father, receive this Your fugitive child. All that I have had in the past has been sufficient for me; I have had enough of being the plaything of vain, deceitful things. Now I am running away from this tyranny; receive me as Your servant, as they received me when I ran away from You to them. I know I need to return to Your house; behold me knocking at the door; open to me; show me how to reach You. I have nothing but my will : I know only one thing—that I must despise the ephemeral dddand trivial and seek the immutable and eternal.

"My desire is to return to You, and I ask You for the means to obtain my desire. If You abandon us, we perish, but You do not abandon us; for You are the Sovereign Good, and no one has ever truly sought You and not found You. ... O Lord, You know that I have the will but not the power, and I cannot even will what is good without You, nor can I do what I will to do ifYour power does not help me; and what I can do, I often do not wish to do, unless You make Your will triumph on earth as in heaven. I implore but one thing of Your sovereign mercy : that You convert me entirely to You and keep me from resisting the grace which leads me to You" (St. Augustine).