Today’s parable is full of lessons that can be learned. How we wish we have
friends who will bring us closer to Christ; how we wish we had the
faith in Jesus as that of the crowd who begged Jesus to cure the deaf;
how we wish we could have been there to witness this event; and so
many others.

A message we can learn from this event which is so relevant in this
age of media and publicity is that when Jesus performed this cure, He
went away from the crowd. He wanted to be alone with the man. And he
prayed for heaven to be with him. He did not need public adulation. In
fact he ordered them not to speak about it.

How often is it that when we do something good and important we want
the public to see and know. We want to impress the crowd. We want
people to admire us. We want to claim credit for “great” deeds. We
want to tell the world, “look at me I am great!”

Let us pray for purity of intentions, humility, and strength. Let us
pray that we do good works and beautiful deeds out of love and
compassion and not because we will be seen and recognized as generous
and powerful. And let us pray recognizing that with God’s help nothing
is impossible.