Be Opened, by Brian Flanagan, Fiat Ventures

“Be Opened!”

by Brian Flanagan, Fiat Ventures

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

What happened to summer?  It was here a minute ago.  Now it’s fall suddenly.  I even saw some crunchy brown leaves in my driveway this morning.  I had so many things I wanted to do this summer with my free time like clean out my closet and catch up on my reading.  Instead I powered through hours of sitcoms on Netflix.  You know you did too.

It seems to me like the whole world really revolves around the beginning of the school year.  New Year’s Eve is great, but watching the ball drop in Times Square on TV has little to do with starting anything new.  Maybe you need a new calendar for the wall every January, but really all it means is that everyone will date their papers and their checks wrong for 2 months.

Everyone knows the real “new year” is September, the start of the school year.  Everyone is back from vacation, back to school, back to work, and ready to start a new chapter in their life.  Football literally and figuratively kicks off around this time.  All the networks start their new fall programming for all their shows (but you don’t really care about that since you’ll watch those shows 2 summers from now on Netflix).

This week’s Gospel has Jesus healing a deaf man and opening his ears.  It might sound cliché, but with this “new year”, let God open your ears in a new way.  Listen for all the ways he’s speaking into your life this year.  Maybe he wants to get into a rhythm of daily conversation with you in prayer.  Maybe he wants to help you tweak some of your not-so-great habits.  Maybe he wants to say something about a certain friend group that’s pulling you in a not-so-great direction.  Whatever his plan for you is this year, you need to listen and let God open your ears to it.  And he’ll do amazing things!

The miracle in the Gospel is actually two-fold.  Jesus opens the man’s ears, but he also cures his speech impediment so he can speak clearly.  Maybe God wants to do that for you this year too once he opens your ears.  Once you start praying more and listening for his voice, maybe he wants to influence some of your friends and family through you.  Maybe he wants to bring somebody back to the Church because of something you share about your own faith.  Maybe he wants to use you to build someone up with how you compliment them and affirm them.  Maybe he wants to use you to call out a friend who needs some ear-opening of their own.

Let this September really be the start of a new year for you and God.  Let this be the best year you’ve ever had in your life of faith.  Let God work miracles in you and through you.  Don’t underestimate what he can do.  When he speaks, things happen.  “Be opened!”