Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost The Gospel Marc.7 v. 31. Wednesday Meditation: A Plaine Path-way To Heaven Thomas Hill 1634
TIZIANO Vecellio
Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple (detail)
1534-38
Wednesday MeditationGOSPEL Mark 7:31-37At that time, Jesus went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to lay his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And his ears were opened, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it. And they were beyond measure astonished, saying, "He hath done all things well; he maketh even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."
In that Christ our Saviour did cast his eyes up to heaven, is signify, that in the cure of ones self being spiritually deaf and dumb, (for in this every man is to be his own physician, and the Proverb calleth upon him and sayth, Physician cure thyself) or in the cure of another, (for we are likewise in Charity to be one anothers Physician) we must cast up our eyes to heaven, that is to say, expect help and aid from thence, as the Prophet David said he did, in the like case: I lifted up my eyes, sayth he, to the mountains (that is to heaven) from whence commeth my aid; and we must cast down our eyes upon ourselves, and behold how great our misery is, who easily fall into sin of our selves, but being fallen we are not able to rise again of our selves, wherein we are in far worse case for our soul, then a beast, or ourselves for our body, who being corporeally fallen into a ditch, are able of ourselves to rise again: and by casting our eyes thus down upon ourselves,we shall sigh at our own misery and unworthiness.
These two things to look up to heaven, and down upon ourselves in manner aforsaid, or rather first
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