He slipped through the crowd and walked away

We have all experienced the situation that Our Blessed Lord finds himself in this weekend. He is at home and he proclaims his message openly yet his neighbors and cousins react in a hostile manner; “Who does he think he is?” Jesus is not cowed by their reaction if anything he speaks out in a more determined fashion.

How often we find ourselves at school or at work when the faith or the Church is being ridiculed or attacked and we don’t know what to do. If we say anything people may laugh at us or ask us who we think we are. Maybe at times we don’t know how to become part of the conversation because at times what people are saying makes sense to us.

The easiest way is to keep silent. But is that the best way? Our reaction can never simply be to win an argument or to shut up the opposition. What we desire is to share our faith in Jesus. What are we to do in such situations? First and foremost we turn to Christ in prayer and ask him to send His Holy Spirit into our hearts to fill them with love. Then we ask the Holy Spirit to fill our minds that we may speak words which come from him and not from our own desire for power or control.

Christ wishes to walk among us in such instances and we have been chosen by Christ to bring him into the conversation. We need the courage to share our faith and simply say why you still go to Mass, why we pray, why we go to  prayer-meetings. It is not about winning arguments it is about bringing Christ into the midst of all we do socially as well as religiously.

The line from this Sunday’s Gospel (He slipped through the crowd and walked away) always make me stop and take stock. Jesus was in the midst of his home-town of Nazareth and people lost the opportunity of meeting him, blinded as they were by their own prejudices.

I ask myself “Where am I also blind to the presence of Christ in my life?” And thus I pray: Lord do not slip through my life without me being present to you.