Note: This is our 2000th slice of bread since we began posting in 2009 with 70,199 "hits". How time flies and how the bread piles up! All praise and thanks to God for making this possible.
Today's brief Gospel passage from Mk 3:20-23 presents a family dilemma and a reminder that things haven't changed that much since the time of Jesus, or, perhaps since the creation of humankind. A large crow gathered to see Jesus at the house where he was staying, making it even impossible for him and the disciples to eat. Hearing of this, his relatives wanted to seize him saying, "He is out of his mind." Was he? No, but in their view, in their expectation of a simple carpenter, he did not fit the mold any longer, and must have gone mad.
It seems when anyone takes a daring step "out of the box", he or she must be crazy. People just don't do that. When Father Champagnat began a teaching congregation with two young men, barely educated; when he built a large building way beyond the existing number of brothers at the time with borrowed money, yes, he was looked upon as crazy as well.
And when for 42 years people have been gathering by the thousands in Washington, DC, to bear witness to the sanctity of life, yes, the are considered crazy...especially this year in view of the huge blizzard still crippling the capital as you read this.
Passion, the strength of conviction, the urgency of the mission, all contribute to this "whackiness", yet without such people, where would we be? Instead of joining the relatives of Jesus in condemning him or his followers, we must pray for even a tenth of that zeal to fire up our own mission and calling. We must be fire, not ashes.
Bro. Rene
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