Saint Bernardino Realino by Ermes Dovico

GOSPEL PEARLS

A pure heart

But He slipped through the crowd and walked away. (Luke 4, 30

Gospel Pearls 30_01_2022

Jesus began to speak in the synagogue: ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’ And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips. They said, ‘This is Joseph’s son, surely?’ But he replied, ‘No doubt you will quote me the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me, “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside.”’ And he went on, ‘I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.‘There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.’ When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away. (Luke 4,21-30)

Before the Passion, no one was able to harm Jesus, not even the inhabitants of Nazareth who wanted to throw Him off the precipice. Jesus refuses to work wonders in their midst because, reading their hearts, He knows well that they do not welcome Him sincerely. How do you approach Jesus today and everything that concerns Him? Do you have a pure heart or a heart heavy with recurring sins?