February 1 |
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Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Feast of St. Brigid) LK4/21-30 |
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| Background: In Luke's Gospel Jesus begins his public life in Nazareth by proclaiming that he fulfills the messianic prophecies of Isaias. Nazareth at that time as squalid little hamlet with only a couple of clans near the capital of Galilee Seporis. It was not much of a place. The comment "can any good come out of Nazareth" tells how insignificant and trivial it was. It wasn't much but it was home and Jesus must have had deep roots in it. At first Jesus's neighbors were proud of him and all the wonders he was reputed to have performed. Moreover he preached well. But then they began to grumble because he wouldn't work any miracles there. So they threw him out of town. |
read the padre |
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Story: Once upon a time in a village way up on a mountain meadow and the end of a soft, pleasant late spring day, the kids playing at the edge of the meadow, her a pipe playing a funny little tune and then saw a young man coming up the mountain side, a handsome young man in his late teens with blond hair and wonderful blue eyes. He taught them the words which went along with the tune and then led them into the village. He had been assigned by the government in the capital city way down in the valley to provide recreation for the people in the village during the summer before the snows returned. He organized song groups, story telling groups, drama groups, and dancing groups. He planned parties, celebrations, and festivals. He told stories, wrote plays, even started a softball league (sixteen inch of course). Everyone loved him. Then some people in the village began to murmur against him. Who was he? What was he doing here? Why was he doing it? Where was he from? Didn't he spend too much time with the kids and the young people? Didn't too many of the girls in the village have a crush on him? So one night a group of men from the town beat him up broke his pipe and threw him over the edge of the mountain. The next day the people in the village heard a battered pipe way down the mountain playing a funny little tune. Many years later two of the kids who had met the young man married one another and went down into the plain for their honeymoon. As they were walking through the city a troop of horsemen in silver armor came by, followed by a huge open coach. It was Finnbar the Fair, Emperor of all the world and his wife Deirdre the Dark. The coach stopped and out bounced the emperor. He was still handsome and he still had blond hair and still looked pretty young. He recognized his old friends and embraced them. He took them home to dinner with him and they recalled the wonderful times they had during that summer long ago. He said that someday when he retired he would come back. They went home and lived happily (only a couple of fights every week) and had children and grandchildren. Then one day their youngest granddaughter was playing with her friends at the edge of the cliff. And you know what they heard? Someone coming up the side of the mountain was playing on a pipe a funny little tune. |
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