There are some movies, we call them ‘classics’, that we would go back to and watch over and over again. Similarly, there might be a book that we would read more than once or places that we like to travel to many times. At the same time, there are places that we visited, movies we watched, music we listened to that did not impress or excite us at all. I am saying this because in today’s gospel we witness Jesus’ rejection by His own people. They rejected Him because they felt so familiar with Him and so nothing that He said, nothing that He did, made an impression on them. Instead of welcoming Jesus as the Son of God who has the power to cast our demons, heal the sick, and bring the dead to life, they rejected Him saying: “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” They were not impressed because they were too familiar with Jesus and His family. We have to be careful not to become like those people from Jesus’ native place. We keep reciting the same prayers, we hear the same gospels, we come to the same Masses, so we can get bored with these practices only because we know them so well. Instead, we need to pray and ask Jesus to make our hearts new, so each time when we hear about Jesus we become very excited, just like with that book or movie we like to go back to over and over again. “Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith.”
