23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time September 08 2024

Sep_08_2024 _Twenty_third_Sunday_in_Ordinary_Time.
Readings: Isaiah 35: 4-7a; Psalm 146: 7, 8-9, 9-10; James 2: 1-5; Mark 7: 31-37

In today's #gospel passage, Jesus travels from the region of Tyre, through Sidon, to the #Sea of Galilee, and into the region of the Decapolis (a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire). There, some people bring a man to Jesus who is deaf and can hardly speak.
They beg Jesus to place his hand on him. This miracle is recorded only by Mark and would be especially appreciated by his Roman readers since the "ten cities" region was like a "Rome away from Rome."
Jesus took the man away from the crowd so that the healing would be private and the man would not become a public attraction. Since the man was deaf, he could not hear our Lord's words, but he could feel Jesus' fingers in his ear and the touch on his tongue, and this would encourage the man's faith.