Gospel Reflection for The 23rd day of January in the year of Our Lord, 2024
Mark 3:31-35
31 And his mother and his brethren came; and standing without, sent unto him, calling him. 32 And the multitude sat about him; and they say to him: Behold thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. 33 And answering them, he said: Who is my mother and my brethren? 34 And looking round about on them who sat about him, he saith: Behold my mother and my brethren. 35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother, and my sister, and mother.
Today’s Gospel is interesting when viewed through the light of the one we read a few days ago, in which our Lord’s family thought He was insane. We know that view was not shared by all of His kin. His Blessed Mother had full faith in Him and He even had family among His disciples. Interestingly, in the writings of the early Church Fathers, we learn that the Apostle who was known to be His cousin, called “brother” in the Hebrew tradition, looked so much like Jesus that early Christians took great pains to meet him and know the appearance of our Lord. We have the image of the Holy Face of Jesus through the miraculous image on the cloth Saint Veronica used to wipe His face. Imagine, those earliest Christians who came to believe in our Lord after the Crucifixion could see Him reflected in His still living relatives!
Because our Lord is the God of love, we know that He loved His earthly family more than a mere man can comprehend. However verses like this one, when taken out of context, seem harsh. May Protestants site such verses as evidence that Jesus cared nothing for His mother and the rest of His family. That, is ludicrous on its face, given the unfathomable depth of Jesus’ love. No, what our Lord is saying is that all who do His will and believe in Him will be adopted into His family. He makes us brothers and sisters in Christ. He gave us His Mother as His last earthly act. Through the love of Jesus, we have Him as brother and Lord and His Father as ours.
It is truly a remarkable statement. Before the coming of the Messiah, family relations were everything. The tribe or family to which you belonged decided whether you were a Levitical priest, a common member of the People of God, a Samaritan outcast, a gentile, etc. Jesus came to make us all one, one family, one tribe, one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
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Gospel passages are taken from the Douay Rheims Bible.