Homily for the Memorial of St. Blaise

The people of Nazareth should have recognized how God the Father was working through Jesus in a distinctive way. Instead, they sneered at Him and despised him. He was too familiar for them, too local, too known. They knew His mother and His family. As one of their own, he was too ordinary for them to take Him seriously. It is a classic case of “familiarity breeding contempt.”

We often fail to recognize the presence of God in the ordinary and in the familiar. In reality, we do not have to go long distances or witness miracles to recognize the wisdom and the power of God. It is all around us in the near, the familiar, and the ordinary, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. The Gospel invites us to see the familiar and the ordinary with new eyes. The failure of the people of Nazareth to see in this way inhibited what Jesus could do among them. Our seeing in this way gives the LORD space to work among us in new ways.+