Good day, and welcome to Communion of Saints from stjeromeschapel.org. I’m your host, Micah Jackson. Today is August 27th, 2008: the feast of Blessed Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle.
The Church has not always been a comfortable place for the Deaf. In the ancient world, those with disabilities were widely considered to be unable to take part in ordinary society. Sometimes the blind were considered to be especially wise, or to have “second sight,” but the Deaf were not given such supernatural respect. Sadly, this is partly due to a general disrespect of the disabled, but in the Church there was also a particular belief that the Deaf could not be saved because of an unusually harsh and rigid reading of Romans 10, “So faith comes from what is heard.” (Romans 10:17) Since the Deaf can’t hear, the reasoning goes, they cannot have faith, and therefore cannot be saved. It’s hard to believe that such an opinion was widely held, even in the Episcopal Church, until the 19th century.
Into this environment came one of the men we remember today, Thomas Gallaudet. His father ran a school for the Deaf, and his mother was Deaf. When he announced his intention to become an Episcopal priest, his father asked him to delay his ordination for a time. He obeyed his father and became a teacher himself at a school for the Deaf. While there he fell in love with, and married, a Deaf woman named Elizabeth. In 1850 he was ordained a deacon, and became a priest in 1851. Merging his love for the Church and his love for the Deaf community, he founded a congregation specifically for the Deaf in 1852.
The other man we remember today is Henry Winter Syle. When Gallaudet encouraged him to seek ordination he was opposed by many who felt that since Syle was Deaf he could not be ordained. Bishop Stevens of Philadelphia acknowledged his call and ordained him to the diaconate and priesthood, making him the first Deaf priest in the Episcopal Church. He died in 1890.
Both of these men understood Isaiah’s prophecy better than most, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35:3-6a) That’s not only a description of the end times. When the reign of love that is God’s kingdom comes near, those physical differences that we think are so significant will become as nothing.
Let us pray: O Loving God, whose will it is that everyone should come to you and be saved: We bless your holy Name for your servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle whose labors with and for those who are deaf we commemorate today, and we pray that you will continually move your Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ who opened the ears of the deaf, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thank you for listening to Communion of Saints. Please join us tomorrow at stjeromeschapel.org for the feast of Blessed Augustine of Hippo. I’m Micah Jackson. May God be with you.
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