“Little children can be at peace playing at home with their mother, but every one of us, once we reach adolescence, begins to long for affirmation and affection from persons outside the home. My two teenage daughters never tire of begging me to let them get together with their friends. Or they are pouring their hearts out to me in agony about how this or that girl (or boy!) does not really like them. We have a lot of talks about what makes a good friend, and how true friendship is a rare treasure.
Jesus, too, loved with a human heart, and longed for human friendship, as is evidenced by His desire to gather around him a special group of friends, the disciples. And yet, he also experienced rejection by His friends. Early in His public life, those whom he had known His whole life--His fellow Nazoreans--violently attacked him, leading “him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.”
In the many moments when we feel rejected or misunderstood, we can take comfort from our Lord, who was no doubt heartbroken when he was rejected by His friends and neighbors. He knows our longing: He has made it His own.”
The Magnificant Lenten Companion 2010, Monday March 8, writer: Lisa Lickona.
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