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XXIII Sunday O.T. - Fr. Joby, OFM Cap. installed as parish priest in Al Dhannah - Homily of Bp Paolo
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September 9, 2024Every Sunday we gather in the Church to celebrate the Lord's day, his victory over evil and death. In this way we become participants in his victory. We too begin to live a resurrected life, a new life, the life of the Gospel.However, today for your parish of Saint John the Baptist is a special Sunday. Because, during this holy mass we will install the new parish priest, Father Joby, who takes the place of Father Thomas, who has led this community since its foundation and who we truly consider in the Gulf a builder of churches and a father to the community. Father Joby, who already has a long pastoral experience in the Arabian Gulf, has been here for a year and has therefore been able to learn many things from Father Thomas and to meet you.The change of parish priest is an important moment in the life of a parish community. It is a moment in which to deepen the meaning of the Church and the parish. For this reason, first of all, we let ourselves be guided by the word of God that has been proclaimed.On this Sunday the word of God focuses first on a miracle of healing performed by Jesus. With this miracle Jesus wants to reveal to us something fundamental about the human being and at the same time he wants to reveal to us some features of the mysterious face of God.A deaf and dumb man is brought to Jesus by a group of people. This miracle appears very important especially from a human point of view. The man in this parable is deprived of the ability to communicate and listen; he is deaf and dumb. He represents the image of an isolated man, incapable of interacting with others. Neither can he listen to anyone’s voice, nor can he be heard by anyone. His is an unnatural condition for any man to keep a good relationship with other people and therefore he was alone. But a group of people brings him to Jesus, and he takes him aside. We notice a real physical contact. Jesus touches his ears and his tongue. He raises his eyes to heaven and cries out: open yourself, Effatha!We can understand this miracle as an invitation that Jesus makes to each of us to never isolate ourselves, to never remain closed in ourselves, but to enter into interpersonal communication, with people, with ourselves and with God. We exist to communicate. We were created through the word of God; we are originally listeners of the word and called to communicate the word to others. Our language makes our existence felt. When we close ourselves in, we get sick.Even the experience of sin can be depicted as the closing of the heart that excludes us from communication. With this miracle, Jesus also says to us: open up, let us open ourselves, let the word of God open our deafness. This miracle also shows us something of the mystery of God. In fact, God makes himself known to us as the God who speaks, God is the eternal communication of love between the divine persons. The Father expresses all of himself in his eternal word and in the power of the Holy Spirit. We were created to listen to the word of God and to praise God with our voice together with all the people.It is nice to remind that this miracle of Jesus is remembered every time someone receives baptism. In baptism, there is a rite of Effatah, in which the priest touches the lips and ears of the child and prays that he or she may soon hear the word of God and praise the Lord as this deaf-dumb of the gospel did. From all this we learn to recognize that Jesus truly changes our life, transforms us. He breaks through our deafness and makes us listeners and announcers of the word of God.In this passage of the gospel the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, who not only foretold the miracle performed by Jesus, but announces that the desert will become a source of water, from arid land it becomes fertile ground. This is an image that strikes us a lot because we live in continuous contact with the desert, we see its charm and its harshness. God is capable of making water flow from the desert.These images that tell us that when God intervenes in our lives and we welcome him, everything changes. This is the strength of God's love: he transforms us, he opens us to others, so that we can love one another as he taught us with the gift of his life.Love opens us: when we discover that we are loved by someone, life is reborn. In the same way, in an even more intense way, our life is called to flourish when we discover God's infinite love for each of us.Dearest, we have all received baptism and one day the priest, repeating the words of Jesus, told us: open up! Let us renew the gift of baptism in us and open ourselves to the powerful word of God that makes the dumb speak and the deaf hear and makes all of us capable of coming out of ourselves, of loving and of being loved.From the word of God we discover that the church and the parish are places where we are called to be reborn. In the Church we listen to the word of God and give praise to the Lord. The Church is a mystery of communion. The parish community, animated by the Holy Spirit, is the place where we are called to open ourselves and welcome one another with sincere love. The Christian community is a privileged place of communication with God and others. The first way to communicate is to welcome one another and walk together: in this parish too you, dear faithful, come from different nations, you have different languages and cultures, you also have different rites.But all of us have received the same baptism. To all of us Jesus says: open up! Don’t be afraid, do not be isolated. Through the baptism We form one body, one church. The task of the parish priest is very important, especially for our parishes in the Gulf formed by different people. He is a sign of the fatherhood of God, a sign of Christ the Savior, servant of the people of God.So, thank you Father Thomas for all these years of service. But we will certainly have other occasions to express our gratitude to him. Today I express the gratitude on behalf of our Apostolic Vicariate to Father Joby for having accepted the appointment to be the new parish priest and for generously putting himself at the service of all the faithful of the parish.Dear faithful, love your parish priest, pray for him, follow his instructions and walk together to thus bear witness to the whole world of the joy of the Gospel.May St. John the Baptist, your patron, who prepared the way for the Lord, guard your hearts so that they may always be ready to welcome the word of God. May Mary, who welcomed the word of God, help us to listen to the word of the Lord and to open ourselves to mutual love.
