Evil lurks and seeks to trap those on the journey towards Holiness. Planting seeds of doubt, wanton suggestions, playing on our unfettered desires. Many desire power but not the responsibility to wield it with loving care. Yes the Lord our God desires that we be like Him but how can we be like Him, apart from Him? Those who live in sin cannot hear Him nor can they open their lips to praise His Holy name. Those who have fallen and returned to Him can attest that being apart from the Lord our God is more painful than anything!
Still our loving Saviour comes to us when we call out to Him with contrite hearts. “Be opened!” He commands… Be free from your sins, be opened to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, to receive my precious body and blood. Then go glorify the Lord your God by your lives!
Thank You Abba Father, Thank You Jesus, Thank You Holy Spirit. Glory and Praise to You now and forever. Amen
First reading
Genesis 3:1-8 †
The fall of man
The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ The woman answered the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.”’ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.’ The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.
The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Gospel
Mark 7:31-37
‘He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak’
Returning from the district of Tyre, Jesus went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region. And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it. Their admiration was unbounded. ‘He has done all things well,’ they said ‘he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.’
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