Ephpheta — Be Opened

11th Sunday After Pentecost — 2026

Today the Church presents us with an extraordinary account of our Lord healing a man who was deaf and had difficulty speaking. It is a story that, for obvious reasons, I can identify with in a particular way.

Jesus Enters Gentile Territory

Our Lord has traveled beyond the predominantly Jewish regions and into Gentile territory. He had gone through the region of Tyre and Sidon and came to the Sea of Galilee through the district of the Decapolis. This was largely a Gentile, Greek-speaking region, strongly influenced by Roman culture.

That detail is important.

Although the Messiah came first to Israel, already we see the Gospel beginning to reach beyond the boundaries of Israel. Christ has come not only for one people, but for the salvation of the whole world.

As St. Paul would later write:

“This is good and pleasing to God our Savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.”
— 1 Timothy 2:3–4

The salvation Christ brings is meant for everyone.

They Bring the Man to Jesus

Then they bring a man to Jesus.

The man is deaf. He cannot hear the voice of our Lord. And because he cannot come to Christ through hearing, other people bring him to Jesus.

There is something beautiful in that alone.

Sometimes we have to bring others to Christ because, spiritually speaking, they cannot yet hear His voice for themselves. We bring them through our prayers, our example, our sacrifices, and, when the opportunity presents itself, through our words.

The Gospel also tells us that the man had difficulty speaking. St. Mark uses the Greek word mogilalos—meaning one who speaks only with difficulty.

Here is a man whose ears are closed and whose tongue cannot freely express itself. Those around him beg Jesus to lay His hand upon him.

Jesus Touches Him

What Jesus does next is very physical—so physical, in fact, that it might make our modern, hygiene-conscious culture a little uncomfortable.

Jesus takes the man aside from the crowd. He puts His fingers into the man’s ears. He spits and touches the man’s tongue.

Then, looking up to heaven, He groans and says:

“Ephpheta” — “Be opened.”

Immediately, the man’s ears are opened and his tongue is loosed.

Jesus could have healed this man simply by speaking a word. He had done so on other occasions. But here He chooses to touch him.

God uses the physical to communicate His grace.

For Catholics, that should sound very familiar.

Our Lord continues to use visible, tangible things as instruments of His grace: water in Baptism, oil in Confirmation and the Anointing of the Sick, the laying on of hands in Holy Orders, and bread and wine which, at the words of consecration, become His Body and Blood.

Christianity is not merely a religion of ideas. God took flesh and entered the material world. Through the sacraments, He continues to meet us there.

He Opens Our Ears

Jesus continues to do something very similar for each of us.

He reaches our ears through Sacred Scripture and through the words of the Holy Mass.

The Word made flesh speaks His Word into our ears and says, in effect:

“Be opened.”

Open your ears.

Hear My Word.

Listen to Me.

Follow Me.

But then Jesus does something even more remarkable.

He touches our tongues.

At Holy Communion, the same Jesus who touched the tongue of the man in today’s Gospel places His own Sacred Body upon our tongues.

Think about that.

The fingers of Christ touched the ears of that man. The spittle of Christ touched his tongue.

But in the Holy Eucharist, Christ gives us something infinitely greater:

He gives us Himself.

His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

This is the pattern of spiritual transformation.

First, our ears must be opened so that we can hear Him.

Then we receive Him.

And then our tongues must be loosed so that we can proclaim Him.

Be Opened

The more time we spend with Jesus in prayer—especially before Him in Eucharistic Adoration—and the more deeply we enter into the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the more He opens our ears and loosens our tongues.

First, we hear.

Then, we receive.

Finally, we proclaim.

And then we go out to those whose hearts and ears may still be closed, just as others brought the deaf man to Jesus.

We bring them to Christ through our prayers, through our words, through our sacrifices, and through the witness of our lives.

And we pray that Jesus will reach out and touch them as He has touched us.

That He will speak again that powerful word:

“Ephpheta.”

“Be opened.”