Today’s Gospel reading relates a very dramatic moment in the life of Our Lord. One Sabbath, in his hometown synagogue, Jesus is asked to read from Scripture and to comment on it. There was nothing unusual in this, and he read a familiar prophecy of the Messiah from Isaiah 61. But when he had sat down, taking the position of a Rabbi when he teaches, all eyes were on him as he said the shocking words, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

For centuries the chosen people had been waiting the fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies that promised a messiah, an anointed one, who would bring redemption and a glorious Kingdom that would last forever. Now the carpenter’s son from a little town in the middle of nowhere stands up and claims to be the one to fulfill the promises. It was too much for the good people of Nazareth, and as the story continues, they try to throw Jesus off a cliff.

In his last homily before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger famously described the modern world as ruled by a “dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely” in satisfying “the desires of one’s own ego.” People, young people especially, are leaving the Church and organized religion in general, in great numbers. The appeal of making up one’s own reality is very great. This is relativism. It relieves us of the difficult struggle to seek the truth and to conform our lives to it, to what is objectively good. Imagine if doctors decided to make up their own anatomy of the body instead of actually having to study the real human body for many years before being capable of practicing medicine. Such physicians would not have many patients.

Jesus spoke the truth about himself and it eventually got him killed. The Pharisees saw him as a threat to their power and prestige. Pilate also feared losing his position in the empire. The people of Nazareth could not be open to the idea that the Messiah was right in front of their eyes. So today, many are not open to the truth that the Catholic Church is what she claims to be, a divinely instituted body and the means of salvation for the human race. They see this as a threat in one way or another, usually to what they perceive as their freedom to live as they choose. But the truth is they become slaves to the dictatorship of relativism. Our disordered desires and partial truths keep us from the fulfillment and true freedom of the relationship with our Father in Heaven for which we were created.

Jesus calls us to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). In today’s world it will not be easy or popular. It may get us thrown off a cliff. It got Our Lord nailed to a cross. But as Our Blessed Mother said, again, at the foot of that Cross, “let it be done unto me according to you word.” (Lk 1:38) God bless you.

Fr. Peter