The Past Does Not Define You

I've heard the Gospel for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, three times: Mass, a Communion Service, and again tonight at Mass for my "cloistered brothers."  This means that I've heard three different homilies for Mark 6: 1-6.  Not one homilist has my take on the scripture.

I can see very well how the people of Jesus' hometown saw Him.  Isn't this the bratty kid I beat up in Kindergarten?  Isn't this the kid we called "Snots" because his nose was always running?

Seeing Jesus from that perspective, who would believe that he was the Messiah?

Some people are locked in their own perspectives of certain people.  Some don't believe people can change.  Some can't get over what once was, or what once was done.

Can criminals change?  Can convicts be good people?


No.  I'm not surprised at people's reactions to Jesus, at all.  Nope; not one bit.

"God does not look at what we have been; God sees only what we are."  (Words of Fr. Jean Joseph Lataste OP - from a retreat given to the women at Cadillac Prison, France 1864)