Jesus comes to personally open ourselves up to God, if we allow it

“The miracle of opening the deaf man’s blocked ears represents the restoration of blocked communication between God and humanity through Jesus. He is God’s intervention in human history.”

“God knows, even if we don’t, how much we all need healing and restraining in the wonderful, awful world, of inter-personal and mass-communication!”

“The only question is how we use this new capacity to hear and speak that Jesus gives us”

“In my view healing is not about building ability or regaining physical health or attaining success or material wealth. Healing is about returning to love and choosing to love.”

“In order to respond to the Gospel we have to be able to hear it. Are we people of hope, open to receiving God's love in the goodness available to us right now?”

“We in our culture, this Decapolis of today, are often deaf to the voice of God...We are inarticulate in our capacity to express these truths. Because we can't hear them, we can't speak them.”

“What do we need to be in the presence of God's word? Hearers of the word. We need to be listeners to God's word. What's our problem spiritually? Deafness. That we don't hear.”

“Impartiality does not mean neutrality. When faced with fear and despair about an unjust situation, we must remember not to be neutral or indifferent. We must be radically courageous to speak and act to transform the situation.”

“In receiving this healing love of Jesus and imitating his love, both of which he does truly well, we too can do all things well”

“every day, people in the seats of political and economic power put monied interests, such as the fossil fuel and pharmaceutical industries, above their moral responsibility to protect God’s earth and the wellbeing of all people”

“Through Jesus and with Jesus, a new creation is about shooting out: a new man is created, a man of communication, a man who knows how to listen to God and how to speak to God and his brothers and sisters”

“To hear and to see are mysterious gifts of the creator God. In this Sunday’s readings, we are invited to ponder more deeply the different senses of what it means to be blind and deaf, and how Jesus can heal us of these maladies.”

“The graphic details of the healing of the deaf and dumb man emphasize and make very evident that the incarnate Son of God is a real physical human being”

“He wants the best for us, yet we have to choose it. He cannot force us to make the decisions. He can influence, but ultimately, we need to make the choice to seek Him, to love Him, and to love others.”

“Compassion and human contact make us God’s instruments if we act in his service. But that requires something beforehand, the biggest risk of all: discipleship.”

“When a person’s heart is closed all we can ultimately do to help them is to love them”

“We are spiritually deaf through the misuse of human freedom...openness to listening for the voice of God and we abuse this freedom through filling our hearts and minds with voices and images that are less than this”

“There is much to gain as indifference and animosity are transformed into having love to give”

“Every life is blessed. But blessing has no power until it is recognized and claimed as true. That is why God is always at work opening our eyes and ears to recognize how we have been blessed.”

“What does God want? He wants his creation to recover its lost integrity.”

“Why does Jesus go to the cross? To show the length and depth and breadth of the divine love? And why does Jesus perform miracles? Because he is the bearer of God's saving power.”