Tuesday of 3rd week, uneven numbered year
“Now his mother and his brothers arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him.A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, ’Look, your mother and brother and sisters are outside looking for you.”
We contemplate Jesus in a scene suggestive of daily life, for we see him there, surrounded by a crowd of people from his village. Those who are close to Jesus came from Nazareth to Capernaum, but seeing the quantity of people who had turned up, they stay outside and call out to him. Whilst Jesus is indoors teaching, Mary is outside with his distant female and male cousins. Jesus is an oasis of peace, where God’s Word is given - he looks at each one who surrounds him, giving to them to be able to contemplate the Beauty of his face and the meaning of their life. All those he touches are transformed by his word and the way he looks at them.
"He replied, ’Who are my mother and my brothers?’
Jesus had left them to follow the Divine Call and at this point he shows that he had also left them on an inner level.Not from a cold attitude towards them, or from a scorn for family ties, but simply because he belonged entirely to God His Father. What Jesus asks his disciples to live, Jesus Christ had personally lived this himself. In place of an earthly family, Jesus chose a spiritual family. He gazes at those sitting around him and says to them ’These are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, my mother.(Mk.3,34-35) Mark describes in other gospel passages other times when Jesus gazed at people in this manner.
The will of God is the Will of the Father who is Heaven, this Father is at the beginning of all things. The way Jesus responds is great Wisdom for us! To do God’s will is the perfection of our life. in order to accomplish it, there are three nourishments indicated in the Gospel : the Word of God, the Eucharist are given to us to accomplish the Will of God which is in itself our food as it is that of Jesus. The first two nourishments are orientated towards the Will of the Father. The perfection of Jesus is to do his Father’s will. Our perfection is to be
found in the Will of God, and so we are for him a brother, a sister , a mother. Whatever he asks of us, we want to find our joy in it.
“And looking at those sitting in a circle round him, he said, ’Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.”
So he says ’Here are my mother, my brothers and my sisters.“Jesus said that in the presence of his own mother Mary.On hearing this Word of Jesus Mary is glorified, she is completely joyous because she has begun to obey the Word in faith!”May it be done unto me according to your Will’ she had said at the Annunciation. Mary corresponds to the Will of the Father. The mystery of her Love is from now on going to be propagated for the Glory of the Father.
“Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother, my sister, my mother.”
In the response that Jesus makes, there is no motive of rejection of his close relatives. Jesus simply wants to say to us that , those who accomplish the Will of God are his brother, his sister, his mother.
Jesus exhorts all those who are there seated- and all the others- to enter into communion with Him by means of the accomplishment of divine will.And yet at the same time we can see how he praises his mother Mary who is ever blessed for having believed. Jesus gives us everything he has received from his Father.
Enlightened by His Word and nourished by His Body and by His Blood, we become his sisters, his brothers and his mother. Mary keeps all of us in her heart for we became her children at the Cross : ’Behold your mother’ he had said to Saint John, and so to every single one of us. This is how the Church gives birth to divine life in us through the sacraments. When we celebrate the Eucharist we do the will of our Father. We make the Salvation of Jesus Christ come to us now on this present day. By being nourished by His Body ad Blood, we bring about the mystery of Jesus which is perpetuated thanks to the Church. It is the reality of Jesus’ mystery which is given to us. We bring it about when we ’prepare’ the Body of the Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus Christ, so that the Church may live and so that each one becomes sisters and brothers in Christ.