Rejection is no fun. It isn’t for you and me, and it wasn’t for Jesus. Jesus was rejected by a number of Jewish leaders, scribes and Pharisees, but here it’s different, more personal: He’s rejected by the hometown folk, his relatives, his own family.
It’s not always easy being a faith-filled Christian, a faithful Catholic in our culture. Sometimes you may be looked down upon, felt to be not sophisticated. “They took offense at Him”… at you. But…you see something (Someone) and you’ve experienced something (Someone) that the others, well, just haven’t. That Someone is wonderful.
St. Ignatius asks us to identify with Christ, experience what he experienced. At times, Christ experienced rejection, even by those close to him, so why shouldn’t we? Maybe that’s a sign that we’re truly becoming his disciples.
—Fr.Mark Henninger, S.J., a philosophy professor by trade, now serves as a pastoral care chaplain at Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL.