Luke 8: 19-21
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Family Ties
So many stories of the saints begin with them leaving their families. St. Ignatius leaves his family to seek his vocation on a pilgrimage. St. Francis renounces his father and proclaims his dedication to God and Lady Poverty. St. Clare runs away from her family home in order to join Francis's movement.
These episodes are hard to swallow, much like today's Gospel, where Jesus seems to be rebuking his family. In a sense, he is. But in another sense, he is enlarging his family. His family is no longer limited by blood alone; rather, anyone who wishes can be a part of it.
How does Mary feel about this? Possibly conflicted, possibly she feels the tug of familial privacy, the desire to have some "alone time" with her son, and no doubt this is one of the many swords that were to “pierce her heart” (Lk 2:35). Perhaps Mary has to utter her “fiat” again here, albeit in a small way. May we receive the grace to utter that same fiat in our lives.
—John Stein, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province studying theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Prayer
Jesus, give me the grace to hear the word of God and to do it, and so to be your brother, your sister, your mother. Amen.
—John Stein, SJ