So there are a great many deaf and dumb people besides those who are commonly called so. These deaf and dumb people, however, often talk a good deal, and hear, as it would seem, pretty much everything that is to be heard. But there is only a very little of all the immense amount of talk that comes from their mouths that is of any use to themselves or to their neighbors, and that which they happen to hear that might be of use to them seems to go in at one ear and out at the other. What is it that the spiritual ear ought to hear? It is the voice of God. The Holy Ghost is all the time speaking to us, either by his own inspirations in our hearts, by our guardian angels, by the voice of the clergy who preach with his authority and in his name, by good books, or by some other means. But we do not listen to his voice; we do not let it reach the ears of our soul, though it may those of our body; and so those ears of the soul, from want of practice, get so deaf that they cannot hear it, though it sound ever so plainly. {368} And so, becoming deaf, we become dumb also. You know that is always the way. When a person cannot hear at all he is apt to forget how to speak. This is the case with people who become deaf to God's voice. First they do not try to hear it, either because they are careless, or because they do not want to; they stifle his inspirations; they never think of such a thing as reading a spiritual book, and if they listen to sermons it is only to criticise the preacher, not to hear the word of God, which they could find in any Catholic sermon, if they chose. And so, not hearing his voice, their spirit loses its tongue; they forget to pray to him, or, if they do pray, it is only with the lips and not with the heart; they forget to say anything for him or about him to their neighbor; and, worst perhaps of all, they forget to go to confession. That is where their tongues are specially tied. Sometimes they even imagine that if they should go to confession they would have nothing to tell. To be spiritually deaf and dumb is a great deal worse than to have no bodily senses at all. A man may live without those senses just as with them; but when he is spiritually deaf and dumb, it means that his soul is dead. If, then, you are in this state, or falling into it, rouse yourself while there is time, and beg of our Lord to open your ears that you may hear his voice plainly, for it will not speak to you much more; and to loose your tongue, that it may give glory to his name before you die. ------------------------- {369} Sermon CX. _He hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak._ --St. Mark vii. 37.