{"id":813,"date":"2012-09-10T10:45:31","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T14:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=813"},"modified":"2012-09-10T10:45:31","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T14:45:31","slug":"spiritual-hearing-and-our-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/spiritual-hearing-and-our-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Hearing and Our Fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is my homily for this past week.\u00a0 In the past I haven’t posted many of my homilies here because I think most people reading this blog probably heard the homily in church.\u00a0 So, I would only post the homily here when there was a particular point I wanted to include on this blog.\u00a0 Please let me know if you would like to see me regularly post my homilies here.<\/p>\n

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B<\/a>
\nIsaiah 35:4-7a
\nJames 2:1-5
\nMark 7:31-37
\nSeptember 9, 2012<\/p>\n

Isaiah writes in a time when the northern kingdom has fallen to the enemies and the Israelites in the southern kingdom fear the same may happen to them.<\/p>\n

Isaiah is given a message by God to assure the Israelites that God is with them, that they do not need to be afraid.\u00a0 They have a hard time believing that.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fear is a powerful thing.\u00a0 Fear can blind us from seeing what is really happening.\u00a0 In fear, we may not hear everything.\u00a0 We might only hear what confirms our fears.\u00a0 In our fears, it can be very difficult to hear the assurances that God offers us.<\/p>\n

Many of the Israelites lived in a common fear that their enemy would be victorious over them.\u00a0 And that fear was a real fear had it not been for the assurances that God offered them.<\/p>\n

Some fears are very justified and can be a common fear for a united people.\u00a0 Some fears really aren\u2019t that bad.\u00a0 What is fearful for one person might seem easy for another.<\/p>\n

What do you fear?<\/p>\n

Some fear war (very understandable).\u00a0 Some, especially now, live in fear of losing their job.\u00a0 For some, disease like cancer is a very real fear.\u00a0 For some, their greatest fear is being left alone.<\/p>\n

One of the things that I used to see as a fear was “public speaking.”\u00a0 Obviously, this became an issue when I began to feel a call to the priesthood.\u00a0 Through prayer and reflection I came to realize that I wasn’t really afraid\u00a0<\/em> of public speaking.\u00a0 I didn’t doubt my ability to do it when needed.\u00a0 As an introvert, I just didn’t want to do it.\u00a0 Now, I have gotten used to it and I don’t even think about it much.<\/p>\n

Another fear for me has been\u00a0the fear of the unknown.\u00a0 With that I tend not to like big changes.\u00a0 But for the last 12 years my life has had a lot of change in it.\u00a0 Quitting my job, moving around \u2013 you know in the last 12 years, I have not had the same mailing address for more than 3 years.<\/p>\n

But I have come to realize that God has been with me in the midst of all the changes.\u00a0 None of the changes caused me major problems.\u00a0 Through all of it Jesus walked with me.<\/p>\n

So I have learned to approach change differently.\u00a0 Instead of worrying so much about the logistics of the change, I try to make my primary concern be to ask if the change is God\u2019s Will.\u00a0 If it is that I know God will help.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that I still don\u2019t think about the details of the change.\u00a0 We have to but I don\u2019t let my fear of the change blind me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t let the fear cover my ears so that I can\u2019t hear the Lord.<\/p>\n

The people bring to Jesus a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.\u00a0 The deaf man could not hear what people were physically saying to him.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t hear them tell him they love him.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t hear them warn him about something.\u00a0 Hearing is a difficult thing to lose.\u00a0 It can be overcome with God\u2019s help.\u00a0 We can learn other ways to communicate but it is a challenge.<\/p>\n

The man in the gospel had a physical hearing problem but we can also speak of a spiritually hearing loss.\u00a0 I already mentioned how our fears can keep us from hearing God.<\/p>\n

To heal the deaf man, Jesus does something very unusual.\u00a0 He points his finger in the man\u2019s ear and touches his tongue and declares \u201cEphphata!\u201d<\/p>\n

A very strange sight but at the words and actions of Jesus the man is healed.<\/p>\n

One of the very last things that can be done at a baptism of a child is the Ephphata\u00a0Rite.\u00a0 The priest or deacon touches the child\u2019s ears as he says \u201cThe Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak.\u00a0 May he soon touch your ears to receive his word,\u201d and then touching the lips \u201cand your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.\u201d<\/p>\n

We need to hear God\u2019s Word but our fears can make that very difficult.\u00a0 God\u2019s Word offers assurances of his love and grace, of his presence among us.<\/p>\n

Fears can keep us from God\u2019s grace.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we must make a leap of faith to turn our fears over to the Lord.\u00a0 When we open ourselves to God\u2019s grace, he helps know when our fears are not real and when they are real, God gives us the grace to manage our fears.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that whatever causes our fears stops but we see it in new light, see it as God sees it.<\/p>\n

Only when we strive to hand our fears over to God, can we hear him over the fears.\u00a0 Then we follow him and proclaim what we have received in his Word to others with our lips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is my homily for this past week.\u00a0 In the past I haven’t posted many of my homilies here because I think most people reading this blog probably heard the homily in church.\u00a0 So, I would only post the homily here when there was a particular point I wanted to include on this blog.\u00a0 Please …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Spiritual Hearing and Our Fears’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-d7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}