August 31
Today's Gospel: Luke 4:16-30 (Jesus Is Rejected at Nazareth)
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and
went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up
to read 17 and was handed a scroll of the prophet
Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the
poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the
attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at
him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your
hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at
the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Isn’t this the
son of Joseph?” He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb,
‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things
that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” And he said,
“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I
tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky
was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the
entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow
in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in
Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed,
but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they
were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out
of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been
built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and
went away.
Reflection:
Nazareth is where Jesus grew up, where the
neighbors watched Him as a little boy, a place where they knew exactly who He
was, the carpenter's son. When He stood up in the synagogue and announced that
Isaiah's prophecy of the Messiah was fulfilled in him, they instantly became
angry. They didn't just doubt Him; they tried to throw Him off a cliff. This did not sit well with those in the synagogue.
Familiarity can be a strange thing; it can either deepen your faith, or it can completely
block it and separate you from it. It all depends on whether you let what you
already know about someone open you to who they actually are or close you off
from ever seeing anything you didn’t know. The people of Nazareth had watched
Jesus grow up in their community, right alongside Mary and Joseph, and it made
them certain this is all Jesus was.
Our Lady had the deepest familiarity with Jesus that any human being would ever
have; she raised Him, nursed Him, taught Him His first prayers, and it never
once closed her off from who He truly was. If anyone had any reason to think
she already knew everything about her Son, that’s probably true to some degree,
and through it all she treasured every new thing she learned about Him in her
heart, right up to the end.
Has familiarity with your faith made you think there's nothing
left for God to show you? Don’t let your faith go stale and boring; evangelize, share, tell your story, start a ministry, or join one. Maybe even find a very active, fun ministry, and the people seem to be really enjoying themselves.
I’m certain you will fit right in, and your faith will be on fire again, and
each day will be exciting and new.
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
