BE OPENED – MK 7:31-37
Dear Jesus, what profound meaning there is
in your encounter with this man, deaf and mute.
He is unable to communicate, either to receive or to give,
and thus experiences an estrangement from community,
a profound loneliness and isolation he cannot bridge.
You enter into his solitude and isolation;
indeed you lead him to experience it more deeply
by taking him off by himself.
And yet, by himself, now, he is, Lord, with you.
And you touch his flesh intimately,
in the most wounded and vulnerable place
where he has found himself incapable of receiving!
And, spitting, you touch his tongue,
which has been unable to express and share.
But not only do you touch his woundedness with you love,
—in this mysterious solitude with him,
in this intimate encounter of two alone—
but you take his pain upon yourself,
and you groan from within this solidarity.
And you cry out in this groaning: “Be opened!”
And the doors of his isolation, his inability,
are thrown open from within…
What an image this is, Jesus, of your own Passion,
where you touch us most intimately in our pain,
and where you breathe forth, as God did in the beginning,
the breath that brings man and woman to life.
You enter into our deepest isolation
and become intimately present to us here,
crying out in the birth-pangs of loving compassion:
Be opened!
Now this man hears and sees, and can communicate,
because you, Jesus, made yourself present with him
in the very heart of his loneliness and pain.
From this deep inner place of encounter
you opened him out to receive and to give.
You transformed loneliness into true solitude
—which is simply a space of deeper encounter
and of intimate union in sacredness—
and this solitude blossoms in the beauty of redemption,
in the liberty of being touched by another.
Yes, it becomes living, now and evermore,
in a relationship of love with the One
who is always present in the deepest inner place,
and who also envelops us all together, inseparably,
for we all abide in that deeper inner place
that is, Jesus, your own most loving Heart.