This Saturday morning, Easter Saturday, I will have the pleasure of leading eighteen adults and youths in the final rites before they are baptized and enter into full communion with the Church that evening at the Easter Vigil Mass.  One of those rites is the Ephphatha Rite, the opening of the ears and mouth of the Elect to help them more clearly hear and proclaim the Word of God.  The Rite is based on the curing of the deaf and mute man in Mark’s Gospel (Mk 7:31-37).

Saturday will be exactly eleven years to the day since I received this rite, the day I was baptized and became a Catholic Christian.  A remembrance of this came back to me this morning as I read today’s first reading:

The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to answer the weary a word that will awaken them.  Morning after morning he wakens my ear to hear as disciples do; the Lord God opened my ear, I did not refuse, did not turn away. – Is 50:4-5

More happened that day than my conversion becoming official.  God truly opened my ears and my tongue as well as allowing the words to flow from my brain through my hand to pen or computer keys.  I was never one to journal or record my thoughts on paper, in fact, I abhorred writing, was terrible with grammar and punctuation, and, most of all, didn’t dare say anything about a belief with which someone else might contend.  Yet, within two weeks, I began writing articles on this blog as a means to evangelize and lead others to a better understanding of their faith in hopes that they would grow closer to Jesus.  Now, eleven years and 300 blog posts later, I still feel the call.  

On March 30, 2013, I would have said you were crazy if you’d prophesied the future and said I would retire, go back to school to become a certified Catholic Spiritual Mentor mentoring dozens of men, and eventually be re-employed as Director of Evangelization and Adult Faith Formation within our parish.  Miracles happen, and, with God, all things are possible.  

“Good and gracious God, by Your grace, You joined me with holy people who accompanied me on this journey ever since I chose to follow You.  Through them, You taught me how to pray, how to converse with You, how to tell You what is on my heart, how to listen to Your promptings, and, especially, how to help others do the same so that their interior lives can flourish.  You opened my ears and loosened my tongue so that others may hear Your Word.  I give You thanks every day that when I heard Your calling, ‘I did not refuse, did not turn away.’  Amen.”

(Ephphatha! was first published on the blog Reflections of a Lay Catholic)

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