WHO ARE MY MOTHER AND BROTHERS?
Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
My dear encountered couples:
The mother of Jesus, accompanied by others of his relatives, came to see him while he was teaching in a house crowded with listeners. And Jesus used the opportunity to add a further lesson. “Who are my mother and brothers?” he asked, when told they were there. And in answer to his own question Jesus continued: “Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.”
Jesus raises spiritual relationship above family and blood relationship. If we follow him and do as he taught we will be closer to him than if we were a member of his biological family.
Maybe you have a friend, some people do, who is closer to you than your own blood relatives – a friend who has shared so much with you, done so much with you, understands you maybe better than you understand yourself, and who would do anything for you, and you consider that person closer to you than the members of your own birth family.
I am sure Jesus felt as close to his mother and Joseph as any son could feel, but he wanted to impress the people around him with the heavenly fact that in the long run it is spiritual relationship that counts more than all our earthly ones.
And so, as long as we live according to the will of God as Jesus did, we are his brothers and sisters. If by our words and example and prayers, we help Jesus to become born within the souls of others, that is, we help to convert them, we then become the mother of Jesus.
“These are my mother and my brothers,” said Jesus. “Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.”
