Homily for the Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori

When Jesus returned to His home in Nazareth, the people recognized Him as the son of Joseph, the carpenter. They knew His mother, Mary, and His brothers and sisters. He was one of them, a working man like them. Yet, in many ways, He was not like them at all. The people of Nazareth were astonished by His wisdom and miraculous powers, and they struggled to understand where He got them. They were perplexed by Him.

Jesus was both ordinary and extraordinary. He was like us in every way, except for sin. He was fully human and fully divine, and within Him, the wisdom and power of God were at work. St. John expressed this clearly at the beginning of his Gospel when he said that the Word became flesh. Jesus was "flesh" like all of us—a son of a carpenter from a specific place in Galilee who lived at a particular time in history. This emphasis on His humanity helps us feel understood since He experienced the same struggles and joys that we do. Yet, this man uniquely revealed God. This is the "scandal" of the Incarnation that troubled the people of Nazareth.

The son of the carpenter, the son of Mary, is with us today as the Risen Lord, present in the familiar and ordinary. He told His disciples, "Whoever receives you receives me," "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me," and "Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

The sacred and the temporal are not so far apart; we encounter the holy in the temporal and the divine in the human. This realization should inspire us, as it reminds us that we are always on holy ground and that God is present in every human interaction and experience.