The Faith Practice of Wonder!

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

2 Sm 24:2,9-17; Mk 6:1-6

In today’s Gospel, we learn how a sense of wonder can lead us to faith in Jesus. 

Jesus visits his hometown, and people are duly astonished by his wisdom in speech and amazed at his wondrous miracles. 

However, their awe and surprise get reduced to distrust and derision, without facilitating their faith in Jesus. 

Of this, a Scripture scholar writes, ‘Nazareth saw most of the Lord, but profited least.’ 

When there is no faith and when prejudice replaces appreciation, we cannot be helped, even with Jesus around. 

For the first time, we find Jesus ‘unable’ to do anything. The power of negativity is so crippling that, with his spontaneity affected, even Jesus feels ‘incapacitated.’

If unproductive minds can produce anything at all, it is only criticism. 

Here, we are called to reflect on wonder as a faith practice. 

Faith occurs through many channels. Wonder is chief among them. 

For someone lost in wonder, the immensity and grandeur of nature can only lead to God. 

Having fallen prey to modern addictions, we are gradually losing our sense of wonder.

Hence, the faith practice of wonder is a dire need of our times to liberate us from our spiritual drudgery and reconnect with Jesus. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar