A couple of circumstances has led my wife and I to go to a Spanish language Mass the last two weekends. My Spanish is only good enough to have slow conversations supported by a lot of gesture. I've been really struggling to follow the homily - the priest seems really energetic but he talks so fast I can't make much of it. The one part I grasped today was about how the early Corinthians' Christian community was at a cultural mix of Greek and Mediterranean influences or something?

I think my big take-away this week was about contextual understanding of language. For most of the Mass, since I've been to Masses in Spanish before, I can follow along. But after Communion today, the priest gave a special reflection and talked for a few minutes with some soft music in the background, and I had no. idea. what he was saying! It made me think: how much of what we hear is just understood because we expect to hear it? And, when we start hearing something unexpected, how little do we understand it?

My other big takeaway was this: how ludicrous would it be to claim that you're the Son of God? Since I have been raised Catholic it has always made sense to me to read Jesus' and John the Baptist's explanation of Christ as the Son of God, but imagine if you had never heard of Him before. Imagine if some ordinary old carpenter in your town went to your parish and announced himself as the Son of God? That would be... unbelievable.