Who are my mother and (my) brothers?

Heb 10,1-10; Ps 39; Mk 3,31-35
29 JANUARY
We know that Jesus is guided by the Holy Spirit. His every thought, feeling, desire, will, affection, all his heart, his soul, his body and his strength, have been delivered and offered to his Father by Him so that he may use them to work the redemption and salvation of humanity. Jesus cannot be governed by the Angels. They are not the will of God. He cannot be guided by Satan. Satan is an adverse spirit, an enemy of God and of man. He does not want salvation, but perdition. For this reason he tries to distance from the divine will, in whose fulfilment there is only salvation and redemption. He cannot be governed by any man, or by the Mother, even if very holy, and even by her brothers. They are not his Father. Jesus cannot depend on any creature. He is only and all of his Father. All his time belongs to his Father and the Father wants it to be used for the proclamation of the Gospel and for the manifestation of his love, his great mercy, his truth and justice. Jesus owes obedience only to the Father through his will, given, delivered and offered.

The difference between us and Jesus is precisely in this. In the sacraments we give him the body, but not the soul and not the spirit, not the will not even the heart. The body is baptized. The body is confirmed. The body is consecrated as a presbyter. The body is married. Since the soul, the heart, the mind and the will are not given to God in a perennial, eternal way and without going back anymore, we are disciples of Jesus, but we serve Satan. We declare ourselves full of the Holy Spirit, but we walk with the spirit of the world. We let ourselves be ordained priests, but with our heart and mind, not according to the heart, the soul and the mind of Christ. We wear our priestly clothes, but we do not clothe ourselves with Christ, our one and only dress to wear for our whole life. We get married. We declare ourselves one flesh. Since we do not become one heart, one soul and one spirit, each one walks on his own. Immediately the body also walks by itself and goes in search of other bodies, but always as bodies to be used to satisfy lust and desire, luxury and impurity. The soul and the heart always remain ours and for this we pass from one body to another body.

His mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside they sent word to him and called him. A crowd seated around him told him, “Your mother and your brothers (and your sisters) are outside asking for you.” But he said to them in reply, “Who are my mother and (my) brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.  (For) whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Already at the age of twelve,  Jesus had told his mother that he must take care of the things of his Father. But even in taking care of the things of the Father, Jesus is never from his will, but from the command of the Father, who can reach him at all times, asking him to leave what he is doing, to devote himself to other things. We have already seen it other times. Jesus is in Capernaum. There are many sick people waiting to be cared for by him. The Father orders him to go elsewhere to preach the Gospel, He leaves the sick and goes to the nearby villages to announce the good news. When he is asked permission to be able to follow him, Jesus replies that the birds of the air have their nests and foxes their burrows. Instead, the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. Maybe because there is not a house that can welcome him? There may also be a house. But his body is not there, whose home is only the will of his Father.

The Mother and his relatives came to visit Jesus. They wish to see him. Spending some of their time with Him. His answer is immediate. Here is my mother and my brothers! For he who does God’s will, this is brother, sister and mother to me. With this declaration, Jesus reaffirms to the world that whoever wants to be his brother, sister and mother must do God’s will. What is God’s will? That He is allowed to do the will of his Father. No one can tell Jesus what he must do or what he must not do. All his time is of the Father and in this gift he must be respected.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, help us to do God’s will as Jesus Christ did.