Puzziling Scripture passage

In today’s Gospel we hear one of several passages about the relationship between Jesus and his mother that make us scratch our head in confusion.

Mary, who is full of Grace who was beloved by God, who said let it be done to me, who bore Jesus for nine months in the womb
And raised him to manhood

Comes to see Jesus, accompanied by His brothers, that is, in this context, his family, his cousins, and they are dismissed by Jesu who seems to prefer his disciples to his own mother

What is going on here?

This passage is difficult for us because it defies the logic of the world, the logic of fallen man, of selfishness which tells us to prefer ourselves first and then our family, our clan, our tribe, our city, our nation… to all others

In Scriptures in general, and in the Gospel’s in particular, the Word of God is often revealed by what we might call double
communication.

Double communication is a linguistic tool used to convey a hard truth.

An example of this, common in the Gospels, is Jesus’ preference for the poor and sinful. Does Jesus really prefer sinners to saints?

NO, what Jesus is really saying is that He has no choice but to prefer sinners, BECAUSE WE ARE ALL SINNERS, even the Saints among us!! THERE ARE NO TRULY RIGHTOUS PEOPLE AROUND!

You see how hard it is, even today, for us “basically good people” to accept the fact that WE are sinners in need of FORGIVENESS, in need of his Grace.

If all Jesus preached was REPENT AND BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL we would all stand behind him, together with the Pharisees, wagging our figures at others

Because, after all, “he is not talking to me!” Right?

Similarly, in today’s Gospel Jesus says something outrageous,
to catch our attention, to get us thinking.

His family arrives, and he seems spurns them in favor of his disciples. What is he trying to teach us?

Some Protestants try to say that this is an example of a rift that opens up between Jesus and Mary, when his ministry begins. Guided by tradition, we know that this is nonsense.

So what is it we are supposed to see? What is the difficult notion
that Jesus is trying to teach us?

We will hear it at the end of this week, it is the first of the ten words spoken on Sinai to the children of Israel.

The one that is first chronologically, but also first in importance,
first existentially and ontologically Love God. The One God. With your whole being!!!

This is the Great Commandment of Jesus that is so often forgotten
in favor of the Golden rule.

“Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Jesus says. The Christian is to honor God even before honoring and protecting his biological wife, child, or parent. Like the mother of the seven sons in the book of Maccabees, we are to prefer God, even to our own lives, and even to the lives of our children.

What a tough teaching!! But it is in this love for God, that we become capable of truly loving our neighbor and with them our families. This is the crux of our faith, the core, the mustard seed the grows into a great tree.

GOD IS GOOD, we use to tell the kids at youth retreats to which they would respond, ALL THE TIME!!!

If this is true, then loving God and doing his will, is always good. Good for us and good for others, and so by loving God first, we truly love others.

We become able to truly love others because we become able
to see all people as brothers and sisters. Wives and children can be thought of as possessions and cattle by men who do not know the Love of God, but if we know this Love, if we do his will, if we do the will of His Father in Heaven, this becomes impossible because we become His family, and we cannot help but to see others as brothers and sisters.

This becomes our primary identity: the Christian is a Christian, before he is an American, before he is an Islander, before he is a parishioner of this parish or of that church,

As a Christian, as one who does the will of the Father he must work together with all other Christians regardless of all the worldly distinctions that separate us to build up the Kingdom.

In this light, Mary, whose fiat, “let it be done to me according to thy word” is her crowning glory, SHOWS HERSELF AS Jesus’ mother par excellence, because she always did the will of the Father she is uniquely privileged. Not just because of her biological connection with Jesus, But because she had faith, a spiritual connection to Jesus stronger than flesh and bone. This is why the Angel confesses her: Full of Grace.

God wills that all mankind be saved and so Mary, cooperates completely with his plan of salvation uniting herself to her sons mission. In the end she does the will of the father wven to the point of offering up her son on the Cross, preferring God’s will even over her own son’s life and thereby becoming a true spiritual mother to not only her son but also to each of us.