Friday, August 4, 2017 17th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Lv 23:1.4-11.15-16.27.34-37 Gospel: Mt 13:54–58
Jesus went to his hometown and taught the people in their synagogue. They were amazed and said, “Where did he get this wisdom and these special powers? Isn’t he the carpenter’s son? Isn’t Mary his mother and aren’t James, Joseph, Simon and Judas his brothers? Aren’t all his sisters living here? How did he get all this?” And so they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “The only place where prophets are not welcome is their hometown and in their own family.” And he did not perform many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
The people were impressed because Jesus was performing the works of a Messiah. But any instant admiration they had for him died down as quickly when they recalled his humble beginnings. They argued: “Isn’t Mary his mother and aren’t James, Joseph, Simon and Judas his brothers? Aren’t all his sisters living here? How did he get all these?” They opted to reject him, his marvelous works notwithstanding. They even took offense at him.
Society has never been supportive of broken people. “Cruelty”, wrote Thomas Hardy, “is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would” (“Jude, the Obscure”). Society has little excitement even for those who struggle to stand up from the rubbles of their dark past to avail of God’s compassion. Some people do not only make it difficult for them to recover but even push them back to where they had fallen. “Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears” (Publilius Cyrus). How can people be so cruel to their own kind?
Fortunately God is not as heartless. A sinner who falls but rises up once more is closer to God than ever before. Even if the whole world has given up on a sinner, Jesus remains as the last man standing for him. As the Good Shepherd he even abandons the 99 righteous ones if his search for lost souls should come to that extent.
The people who are quick to condemn must ask themselves the following question: Must we condemn a person forever just because of his past? The fact that the past and the present are separated by the darkness of night is a poetic illustration of God’s intention to blot out past mistakes and give people a new slate to start all over again. In society’s worldly estimation, a person fallen in the past is a dead person. But as far as Jesus is concerned that person, though he may be dead, still has a resurrection to look forward to.
God became man and experienced rejection. That is why his heart bleeds for the rejected. We should know by now to which side he belongs. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM
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