While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”[a] 48 But to the one who had told him this, Jesus[b] replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”-Matthew 12:46-50
Do The Will Of God
In the Gospel from today’s Mass we witness an event that is confusing at first glance. Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people and some relatives, including the Blessed Virgin Mary, come to him. They wanted to speak with him, but Jesus does something unexpected.
He says that those who do the will of God are his sisters and brothers. Contrary to what some may think, Jesus was not being disrespectful to his mother. Today’s Gospel reading finished off Matthew 12 and throughout the chapter the Pharisees were trying entrap him. This event is no different. Our Lord had, and still has, all the love in the world for his mother. He teaches an important point, that the one who does the will of God are sisters and brothers in faith.
Application
Today’s post is a little shorter than most because there are many saints who have interesting takes on today’s passage. With that being said I have one question. Are you doing the will of God? Or are you fighting against the Lord to do your own thing? If you are doing the wrong thing you may have a whisper telling you so. You also may have that gut feeling that is telling you to do something else. To know the will of the Father some time has to be taken, You have to spend some time with him in prayer, scripture reading, and maybe before the Blessed sacrament. Be sure to take some time and listen.
Saint Quotes In Relation To Today’s Gospel
He that delivers this message, seems to me not to do it casually and without meaning, but as setting a snare for Him, whether He would prefer flesh and blood to the spiritual work; and thus the Lord refused to go out, not because He disowned His mother and His brethren, but that He might confound him that had laid this snare for Him.-St. Jerome
For He said not, Go and say unto her, She is not My mother, but continues His discourse to him that had brought Him word; as it follows; “But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who in my mother? and who are my brethren?”-St. John Chrysostom
And He cannot be held to have thought meanly of His mother, seeing that in His passion He evinced the most extreme carefulness for her.-St. Hilary of Poitiers
He did not then, as Marcion and Manichaeus say, disown His mother, so as to be thought to be born of a phantasm, but He preferred His Apostles to His kindred, that we also in a comparison of our affections should set the spirit before the flesh. Ambrose, Ambros. in Luc. 8, 21: Nor does He overthrow the duty of filial submission, which is conveyed in the command, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” [Ex 20:12] but shews that He owes more to the mysteries and relationship of His Father, than of His mother; as it follows, “And stretching out his hand to his disciples, he said, Behold my mother and my brethren.”-St. Jerome
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