Jesus was God’s messenger, but how sad His own people and his own kinsfolk did not know this. ( John 1 : 11 ). How often we make the same mistake when someone comes to our aid but we refuse to acknowledge or accept the gift!

In the case of Jesus, people expected a different kind of Messiah. They were waiting, it seems, for spectacular events and supernatural manifestations in the sky when they would literally see the Anointed one of God coming down in the clouds. So when Jesus came to them as a simple carpenter showing them the way, the truth, and the life, they could not reconcile the reality before them with the expectations in their minds.

We need to think about the ways the Lord comes into our lives. We need to be open to those who offer us grace, and not to turn them away as did Jesus’ own kinsfolk.

There is a story about a priest who fell suddenly ill and asked a visiting African priest to help him out by saying mass at a convent. The African priest showed up at the convent and rang the doorbell. He was dressed casually and not in a clerical outfit. A nun quickly answered the door believing their priest had arrived to say mass. She was taken aback when she saw the black face. Without giving the priest a chance to say anything, she quickly dismissed him thinking that he came for a hand-out.

“Sorry we cannot help you,” said the nun. “We are having Mass now. Come back some other time.”

“Thank you, Sister!” said the priest. And he turned away and left.

A few minutes later, phones were ringing in the rectory. It was the Nuns. They said they were still waiting for the priest. You can imagine their embarrassment when they learned that the priest came but they did not accept Him, they refused to let him enter.

The nuns missed the celebration of the Eucharist, not because they were bad people, but because the priest who came to them did not live up to their expectations. The reality before them differed so much from their expectations that they did not seize the moment of grace.

This is precisely the problem the townsfolk and kinsfolk of Jesus had with him.

The question is not whether God comes to us or not but whether we are able to recognize Him when He comes. Let us take a second look at those persons we only know too well — or at least we think we do — those people we often take for granted: the people we live with, the people we meet on our daily walks or in the street, the people we work with every day. These men, women and children are the messengers God, in His providence, has sent to us to prepare us for his kingdom. They are the ordinary instruments of grace that God uses to lead us to Him.

As George Bernanos wrote in ‘The diary of a country priest,’ “everything is a grace.”

—Fr. Hugh Duffy