Detail from a window of the Sacred Heart, Saint Casimir, Baltimore, MD

In the gospels we occasionally meet a word which, in order to emphasize its particular importance, is left in its original language. This is the case not simply in the English translation we hear proclaimed in the Sacred Liturgy or read in our homes, but in the text of the gospels themselves. We think particularly of the words of Our Lord from the throne of his cross: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani—“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mt. 27: 46). Or, conversely, of the beautiful moment when Saint Mary Magdalene, recognizing the Lord after his resurrection, cries with a single word, Rabboni, which means “teacher” (Jn 20: 16). Today, too, we find Ephphatha, an Aramaic word which means “be opened” (Mk 7: 34). That this remains untranslated, then, indicates not simply an immediate exterior importance in the healing of the dumb-mute, but a deeper interior significance that reveals something of the very person of Christ.

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