“I am the Lord, your God: hear my voice,” refrains the psalmist of today’s readings. How altogether alien these words feel to me as I pray them this morning. In my modern worldview, direct entrees as bold as this are foreign, if not altogether laughable. I know Jesus “speaks” to me, it is just not this obvious. And yet, in our Gospel today, Jesus is nothing if not direct. He is downright physical. Taking the deaf man off to the side, putting his finger into the man’s ears, touching his tongue, Jesus’s healing activity in this man’s life is direct, clear, palpable.
Perhaps Jesus seeks me too in the same way, offering aid to what I ail from in direct, concrete overtures? Perhaps it is as obvious as our psalmist presumes, and our Gospel presents. Is my belief in a personal God such that I am open to this possibility, as aberrant as that is to my modern sensibilities? Surely God loves me and actively works in my life, this I know. I beg for the grace to be open to God’s voice this day, in its obvious and clear possibilities.
—Matthew Couture is the assistant for secondary and pre-secondary education for the Chicago-Detroit and Wisconsin Jesuits. Matt and his wife Bridget live in Chicago and have two children.