Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Rejecting The Word

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 01.30.22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 4:21-30

Friends, today’s Gospel develops a theme that is uncomfortable. It tells how the people of Nazareth rejected Jesus. Authentically religious people, authentically spiritual people, will almost always be opposed. The logic behind this is simple and unanswerable: we live in a world gone wrong, a world turned upside down; therefore, when someone comes speaking the truth to us, we will think that they are crazy and dangerous.

Think for just a moment what would happen to you if you consistently and publicly spoke the word of God to our culture. If you spoke out against abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, human trafficking, rampant materialism, and ideological secularism, what would happen to you? If you presented, in a full-throated way, the full range of Catholic social and moral and spiritual teaching, what would they do to you? Trust me, they would throw you in a version of Jeremiah’s cistern.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus began speaking in the
synagogue, saying:
“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 Jesus passed through the midst
of them and went away.+++