Saturday, March 27, 2004
4th Week of Lent

1st Reading: Jer 11:18-20
Gospel: Jn 7:40-53

Many who had been listening to the words of Jesus began to say, "This is the Prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." But some wondered, "Would the Christ come from Galilee? Doesn't Scripture say that the Christ is a descendant of David and from Bethlehem, the city of David?" The crowd was divided over him. Some wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

The officers of the Temple went back to the chief priests who asked them, "Why didn't you bring him?" The officers answered, "No one ever spoke like this man." The Pharisees then said, "So you, too, have been led astray! Have any of the rulers or any of the Pharisees believed in him? Only these cursed people, who have no knowledge of the Law!"

Yet one of them, Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier, spoke out, "Does our law condemn people without first hearing them and knowing the facts?" They replied, "Do you, too, come from Galilee? Look it up and see for yourself that no prophet is to come from Galilee."
And they all went home.

Commentary

JESUS had a country accent. When he was taken bound to Caiphas' house the bystanders said to Peter, "You are one of them for sure! Why, your accent gives you away" (Mt 26:73). Peter spoke like Jesus, with a Galilean accent. The religious authorities had no doubts: no Galilean could be a prophet. The Scriptures said so; "look it up!" How could a prophet come from a backwater like Nazareth, a place never mentioned even once in their Scriptures? ("Nazareth?" Nathaniel had said, "Could anything good come from that place?" Jn 1:46).

Jesus did not correspond to their expectations. To despise someone-parvipensio (thinking little)-St. Thomas Aquinas said, is a great sin against charity. The strange thing is that a person of substance doesn't think little of anyone. It's only upstarts who do. "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted," Jesus said (Mt 23:12). Whoever exalts himself will be humbled-not necessarily by someone else; he is already doing it to himself.

TOP