As I write this reflection, I can see Bethlehem from my window. My view is interrupted by the separation wall, a twenty-six-foot-tall concrete barrier twice as high as the Berlin Wall.
Since 2003, this wall has separated families and communities. Palestinians—Muslims and Christians, male and female, young and old—on the Bethlehem side of the wall are often denied permits or passage through to the Jerusalem side. Stories posted along the border wall tell tales of funerals missed, love stories ended, imprisonment for crossing without a permit, and the daily misery of freedom curtailed.
On the other side of the separation wall, there is a school for deaf children in Bethlehem called Ephpheta. It is one of three institutes that Pope Paul VI founded after his historic pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1964, when he met with Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople. The name of this school brings to mind the muddy healing of today’s Gospel. In founding the Ephpheta Institute, Pope Paul VI tried to imitate Christ—to bring light to darkness, to overcome divisions, to heal.
In today’s first reading, Solomon’s kingdom crumbles into division because he has forsaken God. Sin divides us and erects walls between us. In Palestine, however, Mary is often revered as Our Lady Who Brings Down Walls. Like mother, like son. Let her title be a reminder to us of who God is—the one who opens the ears of the deaf, heals the eyes of the blind, and softens stony hearts.
Our sin creates separation and division, but God is the love who tears them down.

Renée Darline Roden