Tuesday in the 25th Week in Ordinary Time, September 23 2025

Luke 8, 19-21

The Mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him but were unable to join him because of the crowd. He was told, “Your Mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you.” He said to them in reply, “My Mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”

According to St. Luke, the Lord’s Mother and brethren — male relatives and neighbors — came to him from Nazareth some time after he had been rejected and nearly killed by his fellow Nazarenes on his one visit there after he began his Public Life.  Luke does not tell us their purpose.  Mark 3, 21 tells us that “his friends . . . went out to lay hold on him. For they said: He is become mad.”  At the end of the chapter Mark 3, 31 says that “his Mother and his brethren came; and standing without, sent unto him, calling him.”  The relative proximity of this verses in the text might prompt us to think that it was Mary and his male relatives of friends who thought he had gone mad.  However, some time had elapsed between Mark ‘s mention of his “friends” and the arrival of his “Mother and brothers” and so these might well be different groups of people.  If so, we are left with no clue as to what purpose for the visit his Mother and brothers had in mind, other than “they wish to see you.”

“But were unable to join him because of the crowd.” The Evangelists tell us that wherever the Lord Jesus went, great multitudes gathered to hear him preach and to lay their sick before him in hope of a cure.  This happened even when he took pains to find secluded places to rest, as when his Apostles returned after he had sent them away on mission. When the Lord saw the people coming, knowing many of them had come from afar, he showed his Apostles that they must be attended to: “He had compassion on them: because they were distressed, and lying like sheep that have no shepherd” (Matthew 9, 36).  His service to those who came to him in their need came before his attention to anyone else, even his own family.  In this way he exemplifies his own teaching: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14, 26).

“They wish to see you.” The fact that word was sent to him through the crowd while he was in the midst of his teaching sounds importunate, as though his “brothers”, whoever they were, thought that at their coming he would dismiss the multitude listening to him in order to receive them.  This would not have been the will of his Mother, who, as a handmaid, knew that her place was to wait quietly until she was summoned. His male relatives and neighbors here show contempt not only for the crowd but also for the Lord.  Their attitude may be explained — without excusing it — if they really believed Jesus to be mad and that the crowd had gathered round to amuse themselves at his expense. We should recall that the citizens of Nazareth had wondered at him when he spoke to them in the synagogue.  In this case, they would have considered the crowds shameful for taking advantage of an obviously deranged man.

“My Mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” If we look carefully, we can see the Lord revealing his divinity in these words.  He is saying that he recognizes as his Mother and brethren only those who do the will of God.  In this, he establishes himself as the perfect doer of the word of God.  He is prime, and everyone else can join the,selves to him but not surpass him in obedience to the Father’s holy will.  But who can carry out the will of God perfectly but God himself? And to be joined to him as through familial ties would certainly cause them to be blessed.  

In speaking this way, Jesus does not repudiate his Mother but rather shows that her holy state comes first due to her obedience to God’s will, and only secondarily from her physically giving birth to him.  That is, physical proximity to one who is holy does not make another holy: “We have eaten and drunk in thy presence: and thou hast taught in our streets. And he shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity” (Luke 13, 26-27).

We do not know whether Jesus spoke to his Mother and brothers on this occasion, after he had finished teaching and dismissed the crowds shameful in due course.  As far as we know, he only speaks to her once after the wedding at Cana, and then just a few words as he hung upon the Cross. In obedience to the Father he denied himself anything that might give himself pleasure so that he might devote himself entirely to the work set for him.