Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 6, 2019
Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were astonished.
They said, “Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary,
and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?”
And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house.”
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith.
As I prayed over today’s Gospel, commonly known as the Great Commission, the phrase that kept coming back to me again and again is “they doubted.” How often in my spiritual life have I doubted? How often have I just gone through the motions at Mass? How often has my prayer life felt shallow and empty? While these questions may be rhetorical, wrestling with them is part of the journey of faith.
Mother Teresa, Pope Francis, and, of course, Thomas have all doubted publicly. No one, at least on this side of the grave, has figured it out. During a general audience, Pope Francis said about doubt: “Everyone! We’ve all experienced this, me too. It is part of the journey of faith, it is part of our lives. This should not surprise us, because we are human beings, marked by fragility and limitations. We are all weak, we all have limits: do not panic. We all have them.”
There will always be doubts and challenges that hinder us from becoming true disciples. Nonetheless, God doesn’t doubt us. God sends us forth anyway.
When the day comes to an end and it’s too late and we’re too tired to pray, pray anyway, perhaps a shorter prayer. When it’s troubling to question our faith upbringing, question it anyway, but hold onto the spiritual value instilled in us. When it’s hard to love those who challenge us, love them anyway, because God is with us always! Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, today and always.
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, give us today a faith to believe in you. You are the one sent by the Father to reconcile the world and to forgive us of our sins. Perfect our doubts, purify our lips, that we may only speak and act for your glory and praise. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Though he is not considered a canonized saint by the Catholic church (nor is he currently being considered for canonization), Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C. was a remarkable man who was animated with a stubborn faith and missionary zeal. He founded the University of Notre Dame in 1842.
Father Sorin was born on this day in 1814, in Ahuillé, Mayenne, a small village in northwestern France. Ordained to the priesthood in 1838, he led a band of seven members of a newly formed religious order, the Congregation of Holy Cross, to what was then mission territory on the Indiana frontier three years later. On Nov. 26, 1842, when he arrived at what is now the campus of Notre Dame, Father Sorin was 28 years old.
In his journal, Father Sorin described the only shelter then standing on the 524-acre site: “An old log cabin, 24 × 40 feet, the ground floor of which answered as a room for a priest, and the story above for a chapel for the Catholics of South Bend and the neighborhood, although it was open to all the winds.”
Undaunted by the cabin’s dilapidation, Father Sorin envisioned there what he soon began to build and to call “L’Université de Notre Dame du Lac” (the University of Our Lady of the Lake), insisting that the new school would become “one of the most powerful means for doing good in this country.”
The confidence of that pledge was tested on April 23, 1879, when a massive fire destroyed the Main Building and virtually the entire fledgling university. In what would become an iconic moment of Notre Dame’s history, Father Sorin addressed the stunned survivors of the catastrophe who had gathered a few days later in Sacred Heart Church.
“I came here as a young man and dreamed of building a great university in honor of Our Lady,” he told them. “But I built it too small, and she had to burn it to the ground to make the point. So, tomorrow, as soon as the bricks cool, we will rebuild it, bigger and better than ever.” The University reopened four months later.
During the years of his presidency at Notre Dame, Father Sorin discouraged public celebrations of his birthday, but did allow a public celebration of the feast of his patron, St. Edward the Confessor, on Oct. 13.
Father Sorin died in 1893, and is buried in the Holy Cross cemetery across St. Mary’s Lake from the Dome. Sorin College, home to about 150 men, was the first residence hall with private rooms; it was named after the founder when it was built in 1888.
In an audience with members of Notre Dame’s board of trustees, Pope Francis praised the University’s founder, saying that “the vision which guided Father Edward Sorin and the first religious of the Congregation of Holy Cross in establishing the University of Notre Dame du Lac remains, in the changed circumstances of the 21st century, central to the University’s distinctive identity and its service to the Church and American society.”
On the birthday of Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., let us pray for Notre Dame, that it might become a powerful means for good!