At that time: Jesus going out of the borders of Tyre, came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the territories of Decapolis. And they bring to him one that was deaf and dumb; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude, he put his fingers into his ears, and spitting, he touched his tongue: and looking up to heaven, he groaned, and said to him: Ephpheta, which is, Be opened. And immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right. And he charged them that they should tell no man. {366} But the more he charged them so much the more a great deal did they publish it. And so much the more did they wonder, saying: He hath done all things well; he hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. -------------------- Sermon CIX. _He hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak._ --St. Mark vii. 37. Our Saviour, in his ministry on earth, no doubt cured a great many deaf and dumb people. The story of this particular cure has been preserved for us on account of the peculiar and significant way in which he performed it. The memory of it is renewed every time that a child is baptized in the Catholic Church. In the ceremonies of baptism the priest, who represents our Lord in this as in all other sacraments, touches the nostrils and the ears of the infant or adult with his thumb moistened with the saliva of his mouth, saying this same word, "Ephpheta"--that is, "Be opened." Now, the child or grown person who is brought to baptism is not, as a general thing, deaf or destitute of any of the senses, and the priest does not, in performing this ceremony, work what we should commonly call a miracle, as our Lord did in the cure of this deaf and dumb man. But in baptism what we may call a miracle, because it is so wonderful, though so common, is worked; or rather not one miracle but many. One of them--the one represented by this action of the priest, and also by that of our Saviour in the Gospel--is the opening of the spiritual senses by the words which come from the mouth of God. {367} This opening of the spiritual senses is a much greater blessing than the opening of the bodily ears. But, unfortunately, most of us who are baptized do not preserve this great grace. As we grow up, instead of seeing and hearing better and better all the time with our spiritual eyes and ears, as we do with our bodily ones, we are too apt to lose the use of them altogether. They get covered over and choked up with the dust of this world; and, after a while, though having eyes we do not see, and having ears we do not hear.