You’ve probably felt that sharp pain from time to time, the one that happens when you’re trying to chew really quickly so you can tell your son to stop hitting his sister at the dinner table (just a hypothetical example), and all of a sudden your teeth close on the side of your cheek, and instead of scolding your kid you end up trying to suppress something you don’t want to say in front of them. Little cuts and scrapes inside your mouth hurt more than on your arms and legs, because your mouth is filled with sensitive nerves, which is also why babies sense the world by putting everything within reach in their mouths – it’s the primary way they sense the world around them.

At the same time, though, those cuts and scrapes inside your mouth heal a lot faster than the ones on your legs and arms. That’s because of an incredible feature of the human body: saliva. Saliva contains proteins and growth factors that regenerate tissues faster. It also has enzymes with natural antibacterial properties – which is why animals lick their wounds. Thus, ancient cultures – who were not the ignorant cavemen we think of them as being – recognized the natural curative properties of saliva, and rather than associating it with the transmission of germs, thought of it as healing.

The people who approach our Lord in the Gospel today ask Him to lay His hands on the sick man, but He does something much more. He comes into contact with him in a way that is intimate, that is almost too close for comfort. Christ is not content with a lesser, impersonal gesture. He puts his finger in the man’s ear and wipes his saliva on his tongue. He wants to be that close to this man. If you went to a healing prayer service and a priest did this instead of laying hands on you, you would definitely be grossed out.

Except that we did this, for hundreds of years. In the traditional Roman rite of Baptism, before anointing the child with the oil of catechumens, the priest moistens his thumb with saliva before touching the child’s ears to say, “‘Ephatha,’ be opened,” and the nostrils, saying, “But thou, o devil, begone; for the judgement of God is nigh.” The use of saliva was made optional in the early 20^th century, but I have had two families who requested the older baptismal ritual for their children also want me to “leave nothing out.”

The words of the ancient baptismal ritual make clear something deeper that is happening here: “the judgement of God is nigh.” The judgement of God is nigh for the power of sin over the soul of the unbaptized child, about to be freed from original sin. That same effect – the removal of the power of the Evil One over the souls of the unbaptized – still takes place, of course, in the modern baptismal ritual, but it is much clearer in the more ancient form, which directly address the Evil One at various points of the ritual before the baptism, commanding him to depart and never return.

This is why we read from the prophet Isaiah today, one of the great prophecies of the coming of the Messiah, the savior of the Chosen People: “Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.” Christ is not only healing a deaf and mute man today. He is announcing the coming of salvation. The day has arrived when “the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.” Salvation is breaking into the world, the ancient curse of Adam’s sin is being undone, the wounds in the heart and soul of man are about to be cured. The power of sin will be no more!

Here is the strange thing, though: The place of this saving encounter is not on the battlefield, where the Messiah was expected to win political independence for Israel from her oppressors. It is not in the Temple. It is the human body. The human body, the real human nature of Christ encountering the real human nature of man, is the place where salvation breaks in upon the world.

For man to receive this gift of salvation, though, he needs to be made clean. More specifically, his senses need to be healed. The passions that enter the body through the senses need to be rightly ordered to receive the gift of salvation, of forgiveness of sin. How does this happen? Of course, the moral life plays a big role in this – our everyday striving for moral excellence, to live in a rightly ordered way. But Christianity is not just a life improvement plan, a spiritual gym membership. Our Savior comes to meet us – He takes the initiative, it is even more His doing than ours – and this happens most importantly in the sacraments.

At your baptism, you were claimed for God. Whether you were baptized with the modern ritual, where this was more implicit, or the more ancient ritual, where it is rather more obvious, at your baptism, you were claimed for the Lord – body and soul. The power of the Evil One that exists over the unbaptized person was taken away and you were claimed as a son or daughter of the Father, adopted in His Son, Jesus Christ. Again, not only your soul was claimed for God, but even as you were anointed with the Oil of Catechumens to prepare you for Baptism, as your nostrils, ears, and mouth were touched in imitation of Christ’s healing the deaf and mute man, as you were crowned with Christ’s kingship when you were anointed with the Sacred Chrism on the crown of your head, your body and its senses were claimed for Godliness.

After baptism, because concupiscence – the fallen human tendency towards sin – remains, our senses are healed through the practice of penance. Bodily penances, especially fasting, calm the wayward passions, and help us to see clearly. The person who mortifies her own flesh through fasting and other penances does not see the body as a problem, as a source of evil – that’s the heresy of Manicheism – but rather as a place of sanctification, as a place of spiritual attunement.

Penance, though, also refers to the Sacrament of Penance, the proper name for Confession. The grace of the sacrament of Penance plays an important role in the healing of the senses, by giving you the grace to resist sin in the future and reordering your passions and desires. This proper theological name, the Sacrament of Penance, emphasizes that confession is a part of a life-long process, not just a singular moment meant to make you feel better. It is a step in a process of the reorientation of human desire, of the healing of our senses.

We said that if you went to a healing prayer session and the priest put his saliva on your tongue instead of his hands on your head, you would be freaked out – and rightly so. But saliva is a part of the human body – so if you have been paying attention the past few weeks, you know exactly where this is about to go. Christ Himself, through the hands of the priest, places His whole Body on the tongue of the communicant. The Eucharist forgives venial sins, strengthens you to resist grave sin in the future, and assists you to grow in holiness. Through an intimate encounter with the Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, your body becomes the place where salvation breaks into the world, where the deaf hear and the mute speak, where the senses are healed, the passions rightly ordered, where streams of living water burst forth in the dessert of a parched heart.

When the soul in grace receives the Body and Blood of the Lord, “God [has chosen] those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XXII Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXIV