Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot
Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 11, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071123.cfm

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jacob wrestles with an angel and Jesus cures a man muted by demons.

Jesus Cures a Deaf Mute – Tissot Jacob Wrestles with an Angel – Bonnat

Thinking of these two figures this morning, I was reminded of one of my all-time most influential books, “Womanspirit Rising“. In the late 1970s, I first read this now classic anthology of feminist theology. It changed the whole framework of how I saw the world.

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A key concept in the collection is a phrase written by theologian Nelle Morton which describes how women, despite the obstructions of patriarchy, can help one another to self-realization by practicing deep listening to one another. Morton calls this ministry:

“hearing one another into speech”

The point is that when our pain and struggles are truly listened to, we can begin to name and explore our own healing.

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I think this is exactly what Jesus did for the man muted by demons. Jesus heard this man’s pain before the man could speak it. The Spirit of Jesus was one so attuned to all Creation that he could hear the “Sound beyond sound” within this man’s suffering.

Jesus’ unspoken response to the speechless man is the same that he offers to all of us …. Infinite, Lavish Mercy:

At the sight of the crowds,
his heart was moved to breaking for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:32-36

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In our Genesis passage, Jacob is fighting his own form of “demons” — one that, in this case, turns out to be an angel, a giver of blessing!

Some man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.
When the man saw that he could not prevail over him,
he struck Jacob’s hip at its socket,
so that the hip socket was wrenched as they wrestled.
The man then said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”
The man asked, “What is your name?”
He answered, “Jacob.”
Then the man said,
“You shall no longer be spoken of as Jacob, but as Israel,
because you have contended with divine and human beings
and have prevailed.”

Genesis 32:25-29

The entire night’s struggle is executed in silence. It is not until dawn that the combatants speak. Like the Gosple mute, Jacob’s true self is liberated by a silent hearing. As a result, he is blessed with a new identity and a new name – “Israel”.

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When we were very young nuns, our Mistress of Postulants was filled with unexpected, old-fashioned wisdom. For example, her recommendation to our vocational doubts was to “sleep on them”. She counseled that “everything looks better in the morning.” Simplistic though it may have sounded, she was right!

Some of the turbulent adjustments, which could not be articulated in the dark hours, found expression and resolve in morning light – when we could see one another clearly and listen heartily to each other’s confusions. Such listening helped to either evaporate the troubles or to suggest a clear path through them.

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That early experience was a simple time for me of growing in self-understanding. But it offered a more complex truth – that, not only we, but all the suffering world needs to be “heard into speech“. This is the work of Mercy as we see it so tenderly expressed in today’s Gospel.

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In such times of deep listening and new naming, the God of miracles is with us. These times in our lives can help us become deep listeners to the world’s pain, re-christeners of the world’s hope, humble architects of God’s tender design for our wholeness:

For Professor Nelle Morton, the hearing to speech is not just a human phenomenon, but one that occurs because of a prior divine hearing and listening. We are able to hear one another into speech (and thus, perhaps, into full humanity) because we are first heard by “a prior great Listening Ear . . . an ear that hears . . . our own”

Dr. Elaine Graham – Professor of Social and Pastoral Theology at the University of Manchester.

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Poetry: Listening – from Rumi

What is the deep listening? Sama is
a greeting from the secret ones inside

the heart, a letter. The branches of
your intelligence grow new leaves in

the wind of this listening. The body
reaches a peace. Rooster sound comes,

reminding you of your love for dawn.
The reed flute and the singer's lips:

the knack of how spirit breathes into
us becomes as simple and ordinary as

eating and drinking. The dead rise with
the pleasure of listening. If someone

can't hear a trumpet melody, sprinkle
dirt on his head and declare him dead.

Listen, and feel the beauty of your
separation, the unsayable absence.

There's a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it. Give

more of your life to this listening. As
brightness is to time, so you are to

the one who talks to the deep ear in
your chest. I should sell my tongue

and buy a thousand ears when that
one steps near and begins to speak.

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Music: Whispering Sea – Tony O’Connor

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