A Prophet is Not Without Honor Except in His Native Place January 31

Wednesday after the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Diane Bayne

Endure your trials as “discipline;” God treats you as his children. For what “child” is there whom the father does not discipline? Strive for peace with everyone. See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God, that no bitter root spring up and cause trouble, through which many may become defiled.
Hebrews 12: 11-12, 14-15

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there. So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there. . . He was amazed at their lack of faith. Mark 6: 2-6

Today’s Gospel (Mark 6: 2-6) tells of an event similar to that recounted by Luke in last Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 4:21-30). In both accounts, Jesus has just come from what must have been an exhilarating spiritual experience. In Luke, Jesus is publicly validated by His father during His baptism; in Mark’s Gospel the validation comes when He raises a little girl from the dead. Then, in both Gospels, after such exalted affirmation, Jesus is abruptly and decisively rebuffed by the people who knew Him best. These rejections must have been particularly stinging, coming as they did, from the very people He most loved. Later in His life, an even more soul-shattering rejection came as Jesus was put to death by the officials of His own church.

Piety

In the introduction to Francis deSales, Jane deChantal; Letters of Spiritual Direction, (Wendy M. Wright and Joseph F. Power, eds.) the point is made that, “Undergirding all Christian spiritual traditions is the insistence that human beings, to be true to their deepest insights, must follow the way to God opened for them by Jesus of Nazareth, in some way taking on the reality of the life he lived (p.9).” It would seem that, in the light of this Gospel, “taking on the reality of the Life Jesus lived” may at times subject us to ridicule and rejection from even our own family, friends, and church. A fruitful meditation may be made on how Christ responded to this painful trial both in what he did and in what He did not do.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/013107.shtml

What enabled Christ to respond to criticism as He did? In his book Life of the Beloved, Henri J.M. Nouwen talks about the empowerment that can come from knowing that we are God’s Beloved. Christ knew He was the “beloved” of the Father. How can we access that assurance? How can it help us to respond in the same way as Christ?

How can we discern whether or not we are following Christ in a difficult situation? It may help to consider what Francis deSales had to say on this knotty problem: “Existing situations, the trials that overtake one, can be received merely with patience and tolerance, what he [de Sales] deemed ‘resignation.’ Or they might be embraced with a more responsive and flexible love, with what he [deSales] termed ‘holy indifference’ or better, ‘holy disinteredness.’ This grace-filled attitude of acceptance of what is beyond one’s control was for the Savoyard a mark of Christian character. For God’s will he felt was known not only in the promptings and dreams of one’s own heart but also in the present, often painful, reality in which one lives; not only in the ‘how it should be’ but in ‘the way it is.’ It is somewhere between those two facts that moral choice, loving surrender and authentic human life are discerned” (p. 43, Wright and Power, eds.).

Action

The debilitating spirit of negativity and criticism may not destroy the body but it can crush the spirit. Today refrain from uttering even one negative word. Instead, seize every opportunity you can to encourage and affirm the people with whom you live and work. Remember, even Christ could not perform His mission in an environment of hostility.