A serious disability such as hearing impairment, tends to isolate a person from normal life. A disability makes special demands and has far reaching implications on his/her participation in family and community life, emotional, intellectual, social inter-personal and spiritual development. A disability makes special demands on the Church who must live out its vocation of being a Sacrament of Christ's Body for all.

Ironically, in most cases, we find that the disability of the person is not the major factor that cripples him. It is rather the crippling attitude and prejudice of the community which regards such persons as merely 'cases,' and categorises and stereotypes them as 'abnormal' and therefore, negligible. Prejudice and sheer apathy are two of the greatest factors contributing to alienation, segregation and isolation.

Jesus in today's Gospel, broke through those barriers. He approached the deaf man on his terms. Even before performing a physical healing of his faculties, Jesus was already communicating with him at a level which only the deaf man could understand - put His fingers in his ears, spat and touched his tongue, looked up to heaven and sighed. Without words, Jesus was able to communicate the Father's love for this man - a communication that penetrated the walls of alienation and separation.