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Notes for Fr. Brian Larkin's homily on the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time on September 5, 2021 Paul Claudel, French poet + playwright (b. 1868 - d. 1955) -Many of the mistakes we make in life and the problems we have in life come when something is off and we don't perceive something correctly.... If you don't see straight, if you don't hear correctly, brothers and sisters, if your senses are off, you cannot live in the world as you should. -Fr. Brian Physical healings in the Bible are almost never just about physical healing. -Fr. Brian -"Make the heart of this people sluggish, dull their ears and close their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and their heart understand, and they turn and be healed." (Isaiah 6:10) -"And [immediately] the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly." (Mark 7:35) -"He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on him and asked, 'Do you see anything?'" (Mark 8:23) -If you do not think you are deaf or blind to the things of God, you are unbelievably naive. The saints tell us that if you saw Him for what He is, if you actually saw Him for who He really is, you would never be tempted to commit a sin again the rest of your life. His beauty, His truth, His goodness, His glory, would captivate your heart in such a way that you would wonder why you were ever tempted to do anything but spend your life being close to Him. But you and I are deaf and blind. -Fr. Brian -"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life..." (1John 1:1) -"Likewise, He willed in His compassion to do the very same for our interior senses. To make Himself available to their grasp and hold Himself in readiness for them. Not Thomas alone, but an innumerable host of the deaf and the blind exclaims 'As for me, say what you will, unless I touch Him I will not believe.'" -Paul Claudel -Mark 7, Mark 8 -"When he became aware of this he said to them, 'Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?'" (Mark 8:17-18) -If we just saw the beauty of Jesus Christ, He moves our hearts and it cures every one of our sins. Because Christianity is about love, brothers and sisters. And if we love and we walk on that way with Him, our hearts find healing. They find strength and they are converted. -Fr. Brian -"He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, 'Ephphatha!' (that is, 'Be opened!')" (Mark 7:33-34) -Are you walking with Jesus? Or do you just go to Mass on Sundays? You have to risk something. No one can follow Him, no one can be His disciple, not a single one of us. No one can be a true Christian unless we leave something behind, unless we risk something to follow after Him. -Fr. Brian -Charles Péguy, French poet (b. 1873 - d. 1914) -"Mine is no ordinary life. My life is a wager. At the deepest level there is a Catholic renaissance coming to fulfillment through me. I am a sinner, I am not a saint. You can recognize a saint at first glance. I am a good sinner. A witness. A Christian in the parish, a sinner, but one possessed of the treasures of His grace." -Charles Péguy