13 February 2026 – Friday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time
1 Kings 11:29–32, 12:19; Mark 7:31–37
HOMILY
The Gospels rarely show us Jesus outside the territory of Israel. In the passages from the Gospel of Mark that we have read these days, Jesus had gone to the region of Tyre, north of the Sea of Galilee. It was a border region with a mixed population, mostly pagan in religion. It was there that he healed the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman. And at the beginning of today's text, we see him leaving Tyre, passing through Sidon, heading towards the Sea of Galilee and going directly into pagan territory, into the federation of ten cities known as the Decapolis.
What is Jesus doing in pagan, i.e. non-Jewish, territory? He is not preaching. He is not trying to convert the inhabitants to Judaism. He does not even speak to them about the Kingdom, as he does to the Jews. Rather, he brings about the Kingdom. He simply performs a healing. And this story is an introduction to that of the second multiplication of the loaves.
This account of healing, which is unique to Mark, is full of symbolically significant details. For example, it is said that the sick man was deaf and mute. However, the Greek adjective (mogilalon), translated here as mute, which actually means someone who has difficulty speaking, did not exist in classical Greek and is found only once here in the New Testament and once in the Old Testament, in a prophecy by Isaiah announcing that the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be opened, and the mouths of those who have difficulty speaking will shout for joy.
A deaf-mute is brought to Jesus. In Mark's mind, this person could well represent the disciples who, in the previous text, had not understood Jesus' teaching (about what comes out of the human heart) and were therefore unable to convey Jesus' message correctly. This sick man is brought to Jesus; he does not come of his own accord, and it is not said who brings him. Jesus is begged (not simply ‘asked’; he is ‘begged’) – not to heal him, but to lay his hands on him and thus transmit his life force to him.
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven in a gesture of prayer to his Father, sighing – which emphasizes the importance of the moment and probably expresses his sadness at his disciples' slowness to understand. After touching the ears and tongue of the sick man, he said to him, ‘Be opened.’ The word ‘effata’ is an Aramaic word, an imperative in the second person singular. Jesus does not say to the ears, ‘Be opened.’ He says to the sick man, to the person, ‘Be opened.’ When a person opens himself to the grace and person of Jesus, he can speak and hear. He is freed from his obstacles.
Let us return to the context in which Jesus performed this miracle. It was one of the rare occasions when he entered pagan territory. He did not speak to these non-Jews using the language of the prophets of Israel. He obviously does not try to make them Jews. He evangelizes them -- not by bringing them intellectual content, by talking to them about salvation, but simply by realizing it in their midst, by bringing them this salvation in the form of healing.
In some countries today, it is not possible to proclaim the Gospel in words, as what is called ‘proselytism’ is forbidden. In Algeria, for example. In these countries, small communities of Christians evangelize simply by living charity among the people. As our brothers in Tibhirine did, with such obvious and surprising results.
Even our European societies, which, from a material point of view, are fertile lands like the Decapolis in Jesus' time, have largely lost touch with the oral expressions of the Christian message. Some of us are undoubtedly called to preach this message in words. But this is not possible everywhere or all the time. What is always possible, for all of us and at all times, is to live the kingdom, to embody Christian love in acts of charity and communion, such as those of Jesus touching the ears of the deaf man with his fingers and touching his tongue with his saliva.
The Kingdom of God is in deeds before it is in words.