Friday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today's first reading Jesus is reminding us that we need to celebrate, mark important and sacred events. We are being  asked to do this because in doing so it causes us to stop and take pause. When we commemorate Jesus’ life through attending weekly Mass and on holy days we are publicly acknowledging and investing in our relationship with God. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’s ordinariness confused people and they could not believe in him. His familiarity made them ignore him. How could he be so special when he was right here all along? How often in our lives do we look for the razzle, dazzle, the new, the exciting, the different? What Jesus is calling us to do is be like Saint Ignatius and find God in all things. God is right next to us and it is through the ordinary day to day living, through the familiar, that we find His love and our footing.