A
Amiciel
Guest
Sharing this reflection on today’s Scripture Readings from the Euchalette, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 05, 2015, p.4:July 5, 2015 - 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Collect (Opening Prayer):
“O God, who in the abasement of your Son,
have raised up a fallen world,
fill your faithful with holy joy,
for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin
you bestow eternal gladness.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.”
Today’s Scripture readings and reflection:
ymlp232.net/archive_gbmbuqgjgu.php
www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2015-07-05
Today’s Scripture Readings:
new.usccb.org/bible/readings/070515.cfm
"REJECTED BY HIS OWN PEOPLE"
"Being appreciated and accepted is a basic human need. Rejection always inflicts a moral wound which hurts us all the more when it comes from the people we love. Most of the prophets of Israel, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel, suffered some forms of rejection at the hands of the very people to whom God had sent them. (See the First Reading.)
Jesus Christ, the greatest of all prophets, did not enjoy a better deal. Old Simeon had prophesied that he would be “a sign that will be opposed” (Lk 2:34). And the Nazareans – the townsfolk of Jesus – took upon themselves the sad task of beginning to fulfill that ominous prophecy. (See Mk 6:3-6.)
They thought that they knew Jesus well (see Mk 6:3). He had been one of them for thirty years! When he went back to them as the “bearer of the Good News,” they refused to see and accept him as “the Christ,” the Anointed One of God, the Savior of the world – their Savior. Their prejudices blinded them to the point of rejecting the salvation Jesus had come to offer. And this distressed him so much. (See Mk 6:6.)
But the rejection by the townsfolk of Nazareth was just the beginning, almost an “acted-out prophecy” foreshadowing the numerous other rejections Jesus would suffer and which would culminate in the one that brought him to Calvary – the worst rejection orchestrated and spearheaded by the religious authorities of the people.
The rejection of Jesus as the “Messiah” by the majority of the people of Israel continues to this very day. Such is their tragedy. “To his own he came. Yet his own did not accept him” (Jn1:11)! Jesus wept bitterly over the failure of his people to recognize the time of God’s “visitation” (Lk 19:41-44).
All these serve as a warning addressed to the whole world (including us) today. It is not enough to acclaim Jesus as “Superstar,” “wise man,” “friend of the poor.” We have to accept him especially as Son of God and Savior of all mankind. Refusal to acknowledge him as such is the worst form of spiritual suicide we could ever commit, for “there is no salvation in anyone else” (Acts 4:12)!" (p.4; emphasis added.)