Reflection for Wednesday February 5, Memorial of Saint Agatha, virgin and martyr: Mark 6:1-6

Gospel: Mark 6:1-6

Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

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Reflection:

Was Jesus expecting to be treated like a powerful celebrity when He went back to His hometown? No, because it was not in His character to flaunt Himself. As much as possible Jesus wanted to be treated like an ordinary person, never did He desire publicity and recognition. Jesus did miracles without any fanfare and hype and we attribute this to His humility.  

Let us think about us as individuals, don’t we desire recognition and don’t we crave to be listened?  We love it the moment we hear people recognizing the things that we do and this is due to our yearning to satisfy our bloated egos. Isn’t possible for us to be humble and low profile like Jesus?

As we do good things or anything that we do for God let us not seek to be recognized let us simply fade away. Let us not seek adulation for those who crave adulation are also abandoned like a hot potato. Those who crave for admiration ultimately ends up in disgrace.

Let us not be disheartened if we will not be recognized or honored for these are just temporal honor/s given by temporal humans like us. In everything let us seek the humility of Jesus, Let us seek the silent recognition of Jesus rather than the noisy, fake and temporal recognition of this world. –  Marino J. Dasmarinas