Tuesday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 19, 2022

Matthew 12, 46-50

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, his Mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.’ But he said in reply to the one who told him, ‘Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.’ ”

I have something to add to what I have previously written about the miracle of the man with the withered hand: a close look at the Greek in Mark 3, 2 suggests that the Pharisees had brought the man into the synagogue in order to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath.  In other words, the Pharisees were using the man to bait a trap for Jesus.  This makes the Lord’s healing him an even greater sign of his mercy as well as a greater sign of his contempt for the Pharisees: their plots and traps do not concern him at all.

“His Mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him.”  St. Mark, in his Gospel, makes the following observation ten verses before he tells the story of how the Lord’s Mother and male relatives came to him: “And they come to a house, and the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends had heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him. For they said: He is become mad”  (Mark 3, 20-21).  Because of its proximity, Mark may intend to provide a reason for the appearance of the Lord’s Mother and relatives at this juncture.  It is not a certainty, but otherwise it is hard to understand the purpose for these verses.  Mark is not the only Evangelist to note the hostility of at least some of his relatives.  Matthew and Luke along with Mark record the disrespect he was accorded on the one occasion he visited his native town during his Public Life.  And John comments, in a palpably sorrowful tone, “For neither did his brethren believe in him” (John 7, 5).  We may think, then, that his “brethren” — his male relatives and neighbors in Nazareth — did see his zeal for souls as a sign of madness.  His Mother, though, who knew him, saw this as a sign of his divinity.  She would have accompanied the relatives in order to stand with her Son, as she would later stand with him on Golgotha.  

“Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.”  From reading Matthew’s account, we might wonder why his family did not enter the house themselves.  Luke adds the important comment, “They could not come at him for the crowd” (Luke 8, 19).  The size of the crowd would have confirmed for the brethren that Jesus was making a spectacle of himself and needed to be taken in hand.  His Mother would have rejoiced at seeing the enormous response to her Son’s teaching.

“Who is my Mother? Who are my brothers?”  from the viewpoint of faith, we can answer this question as follows: Your Mother is the Bride of the Holy Spirit who became your Mother in her perfect obedience to the will of your Father.  Your “brothers” are a mix of mostly ignorant fools with a small handful of faithful followers such as James, and possibly also Simon the Zealot and Jude.  This remains true today.  The Son of God became our brother by assuming our nature, but of all the people who have lived since his time, only a handful have shown themselves faithful to him — have shown themselves as true brothers and sisters.  As spoken to the crowd at that time, it sounds like an odd question because the answer would seem obvious.  The Lord uses this chance to turn that which seems obvious on its head, a regular feature of his teaching.

“And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my Mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and Mother.’ ”  The Greek verb translated here as “stretching out” also means “to cast forth”, as is, to cast forth a net with which to catch fish.  The Lord’s gesture can be understood as claiming his disciples as his “catch”, just as he had told Peter that he would be “catching men”.  First, Peter must be caught; then he may catch too, employed by the Lord.  The Lord identifies those whom he has caught as his “Mother and brothers”.  His gesture would have taken in those outside the house as well to include his Mother while necessarily excluding those who had no intention of being his disciple.  “For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and Mother.”  His Mother, both through her obedience to the Father and in her giving birth to him.  The Lord tells us that we may also become his brothers and sisters through conforming our wills to that of his Father.  This is an inestimable grace inasmuch as otherwise to be his brothers and sisters would require that we have the great good fortune of being born into his family.  As his brothers and sisters on grace we become, with him, the heirs of everlasting life.  

We ought to rejoice in the fact of our baptism in him and our belonging to him through faith and good works, and of our being called by him, “brothers and sisters” and acknowledged as such before his Father’s throne on heaven (cf. Matthew 10, 32).