“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”
If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear — the hearing refrain from the parables discourse (Mark 4:9, 23) appears here, attaching the defilement teaching to the parabolic mode of communication. The principle of verse 15, like the parables of chapter 4, requires active comprehension, not passive reception. The disciples will need private explanation (verses 17–23) even after this public teaching.
Church Fathers on Mark 7:16
But the intention of the Lord in saying this was to teach men, that the observing of meats, which the law commands, should not be taken in a carnal sense, and from this He began to unfold to them the intent of the law.
For that man is a faulty hearer who considers what is obscure to be a clear speech, or what is clear to be obscurely spoken.
For some things are joined to others in such a way as both to change and be changed, just as food, losing its former appearance, is both itself turned into our body, and we too are changed, and our strength is refreshed by it.
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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