23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time The first reading for this weekend, from the Book of Isaiah, speaks of the blind, the deaf, and the lame. Today’s culture is very different from that in which this section of Isaiah was written. Physical impairments now can be managed in most cases. People with physical challenges now lead lives that would only have been dreams long ago in ancient Israel. Moreover, today, little scorn accompanies physical disabilities. People today know that these impairments have physical explanations. Genetics, disease, or injury cause such difficulties. In Isaiah’s time, transportation was very limited. So, the inability to walk was a major disadvantage. Even more a disadvantage was being unable to hear or to see. Communications for almost everyone were verbal or visual. Immobility, blindness, lameness, or deafness therefore severely isolated people. As much as at any time in human history, being alone was a fearful thought. It also was a peril. Finally, physical impairments were seen as the consequence of sin. Physical inadequacies, and ultimately death, came because of Adam’s sin. Individually, personal sin weakens, impairs, and afflicts people. God, in great mercy and love, restores vision, hearing, and the ability to act freely and thus restores a place for repentant sinners in the faith community. Isaiah displays his typical eloquence. Because of God’s goodness, the mute not only will speak but sing! The lame not only will walk but leap like the stag! Springs will cool burning sands! The Epistle of James is the source of the second reading. The New Testament mentions several men with this name. Likely, other men by the same name were alive at the time of Jesus or in the first decades of Christianity. The Scripture does not identify the man to whom the title of this epistle refers. Was it James, who was called the “brother of Jesus”? The oldest Christian tradition was that James was a son of Joseph by Joseph’s earlier marriage. (Under Jewish law, sons or daughters of Joseph’s earlier marriage, if indeed there were an earlier marriage, would have been called the “brothers” or “sisters” of Jesus.) This again is a tradition. It cannot be known for sure with the evidence now available. It may have been another James. Bottom line: The reading this weekend is a great lesson in the destiny of all humans before God. Everything earthly will pass away. Only the spiritual will endure. St. Mark’s Gospel provides the third reading. Jesus returned from visits to Tyre and Sidon, in what today is Lebanon, and to the Ten Cities, an area now in Jordan. Merely by having visited these places, Jesus took the presence of God far and wide, to gentiles as well as to Jews. Returning, Jesus encountered a man unable to hear or to speak. Bystanders, and likely the man himself, would have assumed that somebody’s sin, somehow, was at fault. So, while Jesus healed the man physically, it was a sign of divine forgiveness. Union with God brings wholeness, strength, and hope of peace now and everlasting life in heaven. Reflection The Church for weeks has called us to discipleship, warning us that we are shortsighted and weak. Face facts. In these readings, the Church confronts us with our sins, the source of our weakness. Sin separates us from God, blinds us, and leaves us deaf, leaving us helpless, in the dark. We are doomed. When God forgives us, we are restored, refreshed, and strengthened. We can see and hear. We can find our way. It is that simple. Sin is our burden as humans, often with dire effects. No one is too bad to receive God’s healing, forgiveness, and power. Just ask for forgiveness. God, in Christ, our sole hope, never turns us away.        The post If We Ask, God Will Heal Us from the Wounds of Sin appeared first on Today's Catholic.