Every year, thousands upon thousands of Americans and visitors from many other parts of the world tour the beautiful churches of Europe. Pilgrims and tourists alike show admiration for the sacred buildings they had travelled so far to see. The only ones who tend not to be impressed by those amazing sites are the locals who live around them. They just don't care. They do not appreciate the invaluable treasures that are their heritage. Familiarity, as the saying goes, breeds contempt, or sometimes just plain indifference. Or perhaps the problem is the lack of true familiarity.
The people who are so uninterested in the wonders surrounding them have, for the most part, lost touch with the true value and deep history of it all. American pilgrim groups will travel thousands of miles to experience sites that the locals will not walk a few blocks to see.
But we should examine our own lives as well. Do we, like those indifferent Europeans and the residents of the home village of Jesus in this Sunday's Gospel, fail to see the grace of God in our midst? A personal story comes to mind.
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