September 8th, 2024 - Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

My friends, when we were baptized, the priest or deacon touched our ears and lips, asking God to open our ears to hear his Word and our lips to speak his praise. Because we are human, we all have our share of spiritual impediments that block our listening to the Lord’s wisdom and proclaiming his goodness. We can become spiritually deaf and mute – and unable to live the gospel to the hilt, especially when the going gets rough, things go wrong, and loss upon loss comes our way. Today, the Lord speaks to us the same words he once spoke to the man of multiple disabilities in the gospel: be opened! Be opened to trust God’s ways and not your ways. Be opened to possibilities you never imagined. Be opened to trust the Lord and to forgive those who have hurt you. Be opened to speak the truth in love and risk the consequences.