2 August 2019
Friday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
The gospel today recalls that well quoted verse that prophets get no home-town respect. Of course, there should be some sympathy to the crowds who heard Jesus. No doubt, they recalled his relations and the environment in which he grew. As far as they were concerned, he played in the same dirt and used the same olive oil as everyone else, so how does he come off to be such a great preacher? There are some people whose observation of the world, the common world, sets them above the rest. When I read this passage about the critics of Jesus I think of Emily Dickenson, a profound commentator on human nature who hardly left her house in Amherst. Often, we are seduced by the glitter and fail to find the gold which is often not too hidden within the dirt of our daily lives.