We want to hear the word of God. But sometimes it is too challenging for us. It upsets the quiet lives that we have developed for ourselves. It even upsets our understanding of living in a Christian way.
We hear this in today’s Gospel when those listening to Jesus were amazed by his words, but soon became violent towards him because they were not open to receive a new way.
How often can we block the word of the Lord from our own ears by our narrow views! We run the risk of doing this very often. As we hear in another reading, what endures is love, and love is the commandment of Jesus, the only new commandment to be added to the Ten of the Old Testament. To love is to be utterly selfless. We see how this can lead even the Son of God to the Cross. Yet we are not willing to make little sacrifices for the good of the Kingdom? Perhaps if we were to let go of our own precious ego, we might become more like him, and enter better into communion with him. It is our life’s work to become the image if Christ. So, let today be a new day, a new opportunity to love and be loved, a new opportunity to hear the word of the Lord and forget our own worldly ways.
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 4: 21-30
Glory to you, O Lord
Jesus began to speak in the synagogue,
‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen’.
And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips
They said,
‘This is Joseph’s son, surely?‘
But he replied,
‘No doubt you will quote me the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me,
“We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside”‘.
And he went on,
‘I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country. ‘There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.’
When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.
The Gospel of the Lord
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.