Gospel : Luke 4 : 21 – 30
Year C
After reading Isaiah ….
You have just read a beautiful message of hope from the Prophet Isaiah, addressed to the poor, the prisoners, the oppressed…. The first reaction of Your contemporaries is positive: He won the approval of all… they remained astonished as one is before a brilliant orator: How well He speaks! But they don’t understand the grace that is offered to them.
This text is being fulfilled to-day ….
You try to enlighten them …. They must open their eyes to their situation; they must understand that they themselves are these prisoners, these blind people of whom Isaiah speaks and who need a Saviour….. But they do not admit to this. They do not want to let themselves be challenged. So it is You that they call into question: after all, You are only the son of Joseph! So stay in Your place as a carpenter! Don’t come teaching us lessons!
However, You continue Your efforts to open their hearts, to invite them to be like God Who loves all people. And for this, You chose some examples which will provoke them:
In Elijah’s day … it is a stranger who is protected from the famine;
In Elisha’s time … it is also a pagan who is cured of leprosy!
At these words, everyone was enraged
They do not want to follow You on the way of openness to others. They do not want to see the calls which God addresses to them through people who are not of their own kind, who are not like them!
Lord, how I sometimes am like them! Let me listen to You, even if this upsets me, even if it obliges me to change my behaviour …. Let me place myself among those who need You, to-day …. every day!
