The Feast of the Holy Family

There can be a certain temptation to idealize the Holy Family and think that as a family they never fought or misunderstood each other or failed to get along because of their own human frailty. To be completely clear, human frailties are not the same as sin. There can be misunderstandings that arise between us that should not be considered sinful because they do not result from a willful turning away from God. To suggest that the Holy Family always had perfect communication amongst themselves is to suggest that they did not fully share in our human experience. The danger with such an idealized notion of the Holy Family is that they become so distant from our own experience, we exalt them and place them on a pedestal that we no longer feel capable to imitating them, because our own family situations are so complicated and filled with the pain of separation and misunderstanding. We need to remember that because Jesus, Mary and Joseph were all human beings they experienced the same complicated situations that we do, that arise from our own human frailties. If we fail to take seriously the humanity of the Holy Family, we miss the whole point of the Incarnation. The reason God became one of us in Jesus Christ is so that we might identify with him and emulate him.

There are many events in the life of the Holy Family that we could dwell on that would show us that they were not always united in perfect unity. But today I would like to focus on an event that we don’t often take enough time to reflect on, because we are only given fleeting glances of it in the New Testament. I would like to dwell on the impact of Jesus’ ministry on his family relations. It all starts with our Gospel today, when Jesus pulls a number on his parents and stays behind in the Temple in Jerusalem when the rest of the family is on the road back to Nazareth. What is at stake here is not sin, but rather misunderstanding. Jesus just assumed his parents would know that he would be in his Father’s house. His parents rightly felt that he was far too young to be going off on his own like this and reprimand him for just disappearing without so much as telling them where he was going. Parents and children often fail to understand one another, as the child pursues what they feel is their call in life and the parents are mystified and perhaps even worried by their child’s life choices.

This situation did not actually get any better as Jesus grew up and began his public ministry. We are told in Mark 3:21 that while Jesus was preaching to the crowds, his relatives pitch up and want to take hold of him because they think that “he is out of his mind.” In order to make sense of this verse, we need to understand how Jesus’ public ministry would have brought shame upon his family, because while there were many people who were simply amazed by the authority with which Jesus preached and the miracles he worked, his fellow villagers from Nazareth were a lot less impressed. They probably wondered: “Who does he think he is? Has he forgotten his station in life? He is just a carpenter after all.” This shame would have impacted his family and his cousins, who were like brothers to Jesus. They would have taken flak from their fellow villagers: “Hey who does your brother think he is? Does he think he is better than our rabbi who has actually studied these things? You should go and talk to him, convince him to come back to the village and continue his father’s business. It is irresponsible of him to go gallivanting around the whole of Galilee with these funny stories about the Kingdom of God. He should be at home, helping you to take care of your mother. In fact he is embarrassing our whole village, Nazareth is going to get a bad name because of him.” So his family set off in search of Jesus to try and convince him to abandon his craziness and come back to Nazareth with them. Accordingly, they arrive at a house where Jesus is preaching and he is told that his family are standing outside, waiting to see him, he shockingly tells those gathered around him that his real mother, brother and sisters are the ones who hear the Word of God and keep it (Mk 3: 33-35). At the time, this must have seemed like a huge slight to his blood family.

But this is not the end of the story, if it were, the holy family would hardly be a model for us. The book of Acts testifies to the fact James, the brother of Jesus, held a position of leadership in the early church in Jerusalem. Although it is not explicitly mentioned, we can surmise that James was one of those that pitched up outside the house where Jesus was preaching and tried to lay a hold of him because they thought he was out of his mind. Now we may think that James was just a fair-weather supporter, and once the Jesus movement had gained currency after his resurrection and he turned out to be a really cool guy, then James steps up and grabs the top post using his bloodline credentials. But we must remember that Christians at that time were ridiculed by both Jewish and pagan communities. We might say that James came a full circle, from wanting to prevent Jesus from incurring the ridicule of people for preaching the Kingdom of God, to being willing to take upon himself the ridicule of his brother and in the end pay with his life for it.

I think there are a number of lessons here for us:

1. The family is not an end in itself – it is there to lead us to the conviction that we are all brothers and sisters – it is to help us to come to a point where we can realize that anyone who does the will of God is a brother and sister. Too often we can get too cozy in the intimacy of our own blood families and fail to realize that God has given us our families to be the first school of love. The problem is that often our families end up being our last school of love as well, because we don’t ever move out of them to share the love and affection that we encounter in our families with others. But if we look at the Holy Family we see that it is characterized by a tremendous sending forth. We see this where Jesus turns to his mother from the cross and says to her, pointing to the beloved disciple, “woman behold your son” – inviting Mary to come to see herself not only as his mother, but as mother of all the Church, of all people who seek to do the will of God. James had to learn this lesson the hard way, slowly coming to accept the fact that it not enough to know Jesus in the flesh, as St. Paul says, but to know him in spirit. It is not enough to simply be the “brother of the Lord,” he must also be a brother and a leader of all Christians in Jerusalem. In a way, Jesus’ family only got to enjoy the close intimacy of being a united family for the first 30 years of his life, thereafter Jesus makes it clear to them that if they are to continue to be close to him, they must go where he goes and integrate themselves into his new, wider family that included his disciples.

2. In order for reconciliation to come about between James and Jesus, James had to swallow his pride and admit that he was wrong in initially opposing Jesus’ ministry. Often the reconciliation we long for in our families requires that we swallow our pride, admit that we were wrong and humbly be prepared to learn and accept new ways of thinking and seeing the world.

3. We may not see the reconciliation we long for in our lifetimes. Jesus did not get to be reconciled with James, his cousin-brother during his lifetime. He had to wait till after his resurrection and ascension into heaven for this reconciliation to come about. But I think we can take great solace and consolation from the thought that during his life on earth, Jesus prayed for James often and carried the pain of separation within himself. Despite this pain, he never lost hope that one day James would see the light and they would be reconciled, even if Jesus had to wait until he got to heaven for this to happen.

Questions for reflection

1. How can I learn from Jesus’ manner of dealing with conflict in his own family?
2. How committed am I to praying for reconciliation within my own family?
3. How can I share the warm and love I experience in my family with the wider community?