An absolutely beautiful Sunday morning, sun shining, light jacket, and no sock monkey hat. I scurried off to church, lit my candle, ran over to catch the ladies to greet them after getting off the Chateau bus, and escorted Miss Vi to her seat.
You know what I love about our Catholic Mass and our church? I love the tradition, the beautiful reverent songs, but most of all, I love to see the young families, holding hands, smiling and participating. There was a family of six sitting a few rows in front of me. The three boys had bright red hair and the little girl had blond hair like mommy. They all sang along and recited all the memorized prayers. The littlest red-headed boy, who couldn’t be more than five or six years old, sang along and recited every prayer while mommy stroked his back and showed him how proud she was. Heck, I was proud of him, and I didn’t even know the family. Beautiful!
Today’s Gospel was the story of Jesus speaking in the synagogue, and was not warmly accepted, even threatened…
From the Gospel according to Luke
Lk 4:21-30
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.
My take on it… sometimes the people you are closest to will be the first to deny you and betray you and try to hurt you.
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After Mass, we stopped at McD for our ritual coffee and hot chocolate. Jerry, Helene, and I are the three after Mass amigos.
Later, Helene and I stopped at Tom Thumb to pick up a few things.
I did a few things at home, took some brownies over to my neighbors on either side, then went for a lovely evening walk.
Then the granddaughters made a FaceTime call. They were running around, and goofy, and silly. Mommy sent me a cute photo of them playing in the snow earlier in the afternoon.
Toni Andrukaitis 