Mark 6:1-6
Whenever I think about this gospel story, I think about St. Katherine Drexel. The hometown (ish) saint. The saint whose foundation board my mother sits on. The saint who walked in halls I've walked.
The kind of thing that's not supposed to happen. Not really. People go on pilgrimages for things like that.
Seriously, people who live in Siena, who live on the same street as St. Catherine of Siena, that might doctor of the church...just like...their neighborhood...
I understand Nazareth's reaction to a living saint because even to a dead saint...
I'm directing a show about fairy tales. The kinds of stories that don't happen where real people live. The kinds of stories that happen once upon a time in a faraway kingdom.
I think we have to work not to think of prophets and saints that way. What is it to live in Lourdes or Fatima? Not to visit, but to be born into a place where the Virgin Mary appeared to holy children? To places where people found direct lines to God?
What would it mean to live next door to a prophet? To a living saint?
It throws even the best-lived ordinary life into rather harsh relief. I understand why Jesus was rejected by Nazareth. It's so much easier than dealing with the Son of God as the kid you grew up with.
It begs the question why you aren't better. Why you aren't holier. Why you don't feel closer to God.
Why you aren't the saint. Like the woman who lives down the street.
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