Jesus despised

The identity of Jesus is indeed a recurring question in the Gospel. It would be a shame if our catechized consciences were to cease asking it. After all, it's not insignificant to know that he was conceived by the Spirit, born of a virgin, and supposedly the son of a carpenter! It's no small thing to hear him present himself as a prophet, performing the signs by which the Messiah of Israel was to be revealed, all while designating the Most High as his Father! If this doesn't awaken questions and inner murmurs within us, isn't it a sign that our souls are asleep?

“A prophet is not without honor except in his own country”: this saying is quite different from the one we readily use against those who, in our view, reject the Gospel, “No one is a prophet in his own country.” It is only among his own people that a prophet is despised, Jesus tells us. But then, if we are his people, how do we receive this message?

One way to despise Jesus would be to avoid questioning him, to imagine that we have exhausted his subject, that we have understood it, or that we have given up trying to understand it further. He who came to inaugurate a wisdom that is folly or a stumbling block to mankind, would he no longer stir desire or agitation in the hearts of his disciples?

Benoist de Sinety

(Unpublished meditation for Magnificat .)

Father Benoist de Sinety is the dean of the city of Lille and the parish priest of Saint-Eubert.