One day in the mid-19^th century, a newly ordained French priest was visited by a priest from another country, who showed up at his front doorstep unannounced and unkempt. He gave the man a room in the rectory attic. The French priest lived to see his visitor canonized, as St. John Bosco. On hearing of his canonization, the French priest remarked, "If I knew he was a saint, I would have given him a better room."

On Judgment Day, I can imagine some of our Lord’s contemporaries from the town of Nazareth saying something very similar: "If only I had realized that he was the Son of God, the Word made flesh, the King of kings, I wouldn’t have doubted his words or his power."

To the newly ordained French priest, St. John Bosco seemed too ordinary. Likewise, to the people of Nazareth, Jesus Christ seemed much too ordinary. After all, they had known Jesus from his infancy (they knew him as the old saying goes, "way back when"). They even knew the members of his family, none of whom was anybody special in the eyes of the world. And so they responded to Jesus with indignation and disbelief—both of which, I would say, were rooted in pride. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? . . . Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?" In other words, "How could God use someone like that to accomplish such mighty works? How could this carpenter be such a powerful instrument of the Almighty King of the universe?!"

Because of their pride and disbelief, the people of Nazareth received little from Jesus. They were closed-minded and hard-hearted, and he allowed them to experience the consequences of those attitudes.

Let’s pray at this Mass that we will not respond to Jesus as they did.

"But Fr. Ray, Jesus doesn’t walk among us as he walked among people during his earthly ministry. We don’t see him in the same way his fellow Nazoreans did." True. But Jesus is still with us, especially in the sacraments. And don’t some Catholics respond to the sacraments in the same way that the people of Nazareth responded to Jesus 2,000 years ago? "What’s so special about the sacraments?," they’ll say. "The sacraments involve ordinary things—water, oil, bread, wine. How can these simple, everyday substances be channels of God’s power and life? They’re much too familiar to us; they’re much too ordinary!"

Do you see the parallel?

We need to ask the Lord to deepen our faith in these seven instruments of his grace, so that they will bear good fruit in our lives. Remember, Jesus respected the freedom of the people of Nazareth. Consequently, when they made the decision not to put their faith in him, he was able to do little to help them. Similarly, Jesus will do little for us through the sacraments, if we don’t put faith in their power to change our lives for the better. Yes, grace will always be given to us whenever a sacrament is celebrated validly, but on the practical level that grace will have little effect in us—or none at all—if we choose not to believe that Jesus is present and at work in the sacrament. This explains how some Catholics can receive Communion every Sunday, and be no better afterward.