Amazement and familiarity

“A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country.” This is Christ’s indictment against the people of his own place who, instead of being amazed and thankful for having among them not only a very special person but the very son of God, found Christ too much for them, and were in fact scandalized by him.

This is what familiarity is all about and what it produces. As an adage would put it, familiarity breeds contempt. It is the state of getting too accustomed to God and to his goodness such that we would not feel the urge anymore to thank and praise him for everything that we have and enjoy, since all these things come from him.

It is a very common danger to us, and is at bottom a result of letting simply our senses, feelings and our other ways of purely human estimation to guide us rather than our faith, and its necessary companions of hope and charity.

With this frame of mind, we sooner or later would get used to things and would fall into routine. We would start building our own world that would depend only on our very limited and fragile powers. Our worldview would have us as the very center of the universe. Everything would be regarded exclusively in relation to us.

Little by little, we would be isolating ourselves from others, and especially from God. What would worsen things is the false sensation that we can be on our own, that we can afford not to be related to others because of the new technologies that can intoxicate us into thinking that we are very powerful.

We have to be more aware of this danger of familiarity and install the necessary defenses against it. More than that, we have to aggressively cultivate the art of always being amazed at God and at all his works. That should be the proper state for us to be in.

We have to understand, though, that this abiding state of amazement that we should try to develop is not a matter simply of sensations. Of course, it would be good if we can always feel amazed and in awe. But given the limitations of our bodily organism, we cannot expect that to happen all the time.

The ideal abiding state of amazement is more a matter of conviction, of something spiritual, moral and supernatural. It should be the result of grace that is corresponded to generously and heroically by us.

It is a state of amazement that sooner or later, of course, will have some external manifestations like an aura of serenity and confidence even in the midst of great trials and suffering. It will most likely show itself in the lilt in one’s voice, optimism in his reactions to events, a smile, a warm word of praise and encouragement to others, etc.

To be sure, God will always give us this grace. The problematic area is our correspondence to that grace. In this regard, we should try to pray and meditate on God’s word. Let’s see to it that we get to relish the spirit behind the word of God as presented to us in Bible.

We have to be wary of our tendency to go through God’s word in a mechanical way. We can produce the sound, we can use the word in some sensible and intelligible way, but still miss the very spirit of the word. We can still miss God and ignore his will, because our heart is still not in God’s word.

Besides, we need to develop a deepening sense of total dependence on God. Let’s see to it that our talents, faculties and powers, our achievements do not blunt, but rather sharpen this sense of dependence.

We have to be humble to acknowledge our nothingness and feel ever more sharply our need to go to God. Let’s try to imitate the attitude of those who went to Christ for some miraculous cure and relief of their incurable diseases and insoluble predicaments.

In this regard, let’s have the mind, for example, of Jairus, the father of the dying daughter, the woman sick for long with a hemorrhage, the paralytic who had to be lowered from the roof just to get near Christ, etc. All showed their extreme need to go to Christ.

May it be that all the blessings we enjoy at the moment do not undermine this great need, because that is crucial in developing and keeping this sense of amazement and awe. Let’s deepen our humility!