REFLECTIONS TODAY
In the 2021 movie CODA (“child of deaf adults”), Ruby, the only hearing member of her family, helps her family’s struggling fishing business while pursuing her own aspirations of being a singer.
When she decides to forgo college and join the business full-time, her parents are supportive, but her brother Leo insists that the family can manage without Ruby as she truly has talent. She passes an audition and is accepted in Berklee.
Meanwhile, the hearing workers in the family’s fishing business have been learning sign language, enabling them to communicate with and interpret for the family.
In the Gospel, the deaf man with a speech impediment is in a much worse condition. It is nearly impossible for him to communicate with others and for others to communicate with him.
Verbal community would be slow and laborious. Sign language is near-existent and inadequate at best. In many ways he would be disconnected from family, friends, and God. Fortunately, he has some family and friends who, hearing that Jesus is around, bring him to Jesus to intercede on his behalf. Even though Ruby’s family members are deaf and unable to talk, they are still blessed because they have a loving daughter in Ruby and people around who care for them.
Gospel • Mark 7:31-37
Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: publishing@stpauls.ph; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.