“Ephphatha” “ Be opened”

“Ephphatha” – “Be opened” These were the repeated words in the homily of Pope Benedict XVI, which he delivered at Sunday mass on September 10, delivered before an estimated 250,000 people in Munich.

The Gospel reading he used, speaks of Jesus’s healing of a man born deaf and mute. Jesus is concerned for the suffering, those pushed to the margins of society. He obviously points out the goal of all our activity: “ To speak of God is to speak of society.”

There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a ‘hardness of hearing’ where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own times. In other words, we are no longer able to hear God – there are too many different frequencies filling our ears. Along with this disability we are no longer able to converse with him and to him. We risk losing our inner senses.

Jesus’s healing the deaf man by saying “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” might be of a distant past; He continues to do the same thing, even today. At our Baptism he touched each of us and said “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”. He says the same thing for the salesians and the members of the salesian family today, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened,” through the call of the Rector Major to start afresh from Don Bosco and to be open to hear Don Bosco and the young.

We are no longer able to hear Don Bosco and the young. We are too busy with our own plans for ourselves and our institutions while the institutions meant for the young are hardly open for the young.

Pope in his homily said, “ Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable.” Surprisingly Don Bosco and the young are inseparable. That is why he had as his motto: Da Mihi Animas Cetera Tolle - Give me Souls and take away the rest. Don Bosco was willing to give all his time and energy for the poor boys. A great driving force indeed!

At a time when the west is stagnant with regard to vocations to salesian life, the call of the Rector Major comes as the words of Jesus, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” to all of us, the members of the salesian family in South Asia.

People in Africa and Asia admire the scientific and technical prowess of the west. At the same time they are frightened of the controlling rationality behind that outward elegance. When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence and evil take over. We need to give to the young the peace and tranquility that a serene interior life can offer. The call of the Rector Major compels us to extend our support to the young who really need God and Don Bosco back.

We, the salesian family, just celebrated the centenary of the arrival of Salesians to India. We are happy about the achievements in terms of technical advancement and the infrastructural development and yet we need to achieve much in terms of the spirituality and the meaning system of the young who are so promising and yet so weak in nature.

Time is right for us to reach out to the remotest corners of the earth. Let us reaffirm this commitment we have for Don Bosco and for the young. Let all our inner sensibilities be opened for this call. “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”