The Lord

One of the truly great Catholic books—and we are fortunate there are so many—I have discovered is The Lord by Romano Guardini, and when he writes about the reception Jesus receives from his own neighbors in Nazareth as he was teaching in the synagogue, well dear reader, I had to share this excerpt with you.

An excerpt.

“In Nazareth, scandal, flickering since Jesus’ very first words, now flares up. Then it glimmers hidden under the ash. At the end, its roaring conflagration closes over Christ’s head: eternal revolt of the human heart against the bearer of its own salvation.

“Scandal—source of the power that Jesus’ enemies organize against him. They use any ‘reasons’ for their hatred that they can find: that he heals on the Sabbath; that he dines with people of ill repute; that he does not live as an ascetic, and so on. The real reason is never given; invariably it is this mysterious, inexplicable impulse of the fallen human heart revolting against the holiness that is God.

“Thus into the hour glowing with the fullness of holy beauty and truth slash the words: “Is not this Joseph’s son?” and Matthew adds:” Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Then where did he get all this” (Matthew 13:55-56)

“Jesus forces the enemy to step from his ambush: You doubt me? You whisper: Why doesn’t he work the miracles he has worked elsewhere here in his own city? Let me tell you! There I could work, because there they believed in me; but you do not believe. And why not? Because I am one of you! Beware, what happened to those nearest Elias and Eliseus will happen to you: their own people refused to believe and fell from grace, and the holiness which they denied was given to strangers!

“But the hour is Satan’s. From those who had just witnessed, amazed and moved, the grace and beauty of Jesus’ words, a paroxysm of rage breaks lose. They thrust him out of the synagogue and through the streets of the city to the precipice of the hill on which it lies, to hurl him from it. Rejection of the kingdom’s eternal, inexpressible abundance has become a living possibility. Already the cross stands waiting.

“However, the hour in which “the power of darkness” has its will entirely has not yet come (Luke 22:53); the incident is turned into a demonstration of spiritual power. The strongest things are the stillest. The scene in the temple before Easter, when Jesus single-handed overthrows the tables of the money-lenders and drives the crowds of bartering pilgrims from his Father’s house is striking enough (John 2:14-17). But what occurs here in Nazareth is an even greater proof of spiritual force. The excited mob, infuriated by neighborly hate and general demonic hysteria, surrounds Jesus, drives him up the hill to the brink of the precipice, and tries to force him over it to his death. Suddenly, in the thick of the clamor and chaos, the quiet words: “But he, passing through their midst, went his way.” No return of violence for violence. Soundlessly, effortlessly, divine freedom walks right through the seething mob, its irresistible force bound by nothing on earth but its own “hour.” (Hardcover Edition, pp. 46-47)