Tuesday of 16th Week in Ordinary Time
JESUS’ REAL RELATIVES
The Prophet Micah assures God’s people that God forgives them their infidelity. The people answer with a hymn of praise and trust.
Jesus assures us that what brings us close to God and makes us his relatives is doing the will of the Father. This is all that matters, more than ties of blood. This mission was the core and meaning of Jesus’ life and death. Let us pray that his faithfulness may also be ours.
First Reading: Micah 7:14-17
Shepherd, O God, your people with your staff,
your dear and precious flock.
Uniquely yours in a grove of trees,
centered in lotus land.
Let them graze in lush Bashan
as in the old days in green Gilead.
Reproduce the miracle-wonders
of our exodus from Egypt.
And the godless nations: Put them in their place—
humiliated in their arrogance, speechless and clueless.
Make them slink like snakes, crawl like cockroaches,
come out of their holes from under their rocks
And face our God.
Fill them with holy fear and trembling.
Gospel: Matthew 12:46-50
While he was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers showed up. They were outside trying to get a message to him. Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and brothers are out here, wanting to speak with you.”
Jesus didn’t respond directly, but said, “Who do you think my mother and brothers are?” He then stretched out his hand toward his disciples. “Look closely. These are my mother and brothers. Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys my heavenly Father’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Prayer
God, Father of all,
you know and you love us;
whatever happens to us,
we are in your hands.
Wherever you lead us,
you know where you want us to go.
We ask you for faith and trust.
Make your will our will,
that you may lead us to your home
under the guidance of him
who did your will in everything,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reflection:
19 July 2022
Matthew 12:46-50
Jesus, our brother!
“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers and sisters?” (Mt 12:48). Jesus challenges his listeners to become his family, his brothers and sisters, relatives or loved ones. Then he sets the new criterion for becoming the Family of God: “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, sister, and mother” (v. 50). The challenge for the listeners was to be part of this new family.
The concept of this Family of God became so strong a binding force for the community of disciples, especially after the Pentecost experience. They lived together as a family, sharing everything and was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of their brothers, sisters – their now-found family. As the community grew in numbers, the missionaries who left their homes and natives for far off lands, because of their convictions that they were part of a family much larger than those based on blood-lines, religions and nationalities. The missionaries, in the history of the Church, set out in search of family members they had never known before.
If not for the efforts of those missionaries who came in search of the faces of their “unknown brothers and sisters,” this family of Jesus would have lacked the black or dark faces, white and European faces, Chinese and Japanese faces!
In the Gospel, Jesus calls his listeners as his brother, sister and mother. And that invitation is for all those who listen to him from every generation in the history. He gives us the invitation to be missionary disciples by sharing with others what Jesus did and said. He ate with sinners, assuring them that they too had a place at the Father’s table; he touched those considered to be unclean and, by letting himself be touched by them, he helped them to realize the closeness of God.
Pope Francis visited Bangkok, Thailand in 2019. During his Mass in the National Stadium in Bangkok the pope said that “the family of Jesus also include children and women who are victims of prostitution and human trafficking, young people enslaved by drug addiction and a lack of meaning, migrants, deprived of their homes and families, exploited fishermen and bypassed beggars. All of them are part of our family. They are our mothers, our brothers and sisters. Let us not deprive our communities of seeing their faces, their wounds, their smiles and their lives. Let us not prevent them from experiencing the merciful balm of God’s love that heals their wounds and pains.”
A missionary disciple knows that evangelisation is not about gaining more members or about appearing powerful. Rather, it is about opening doors in order to experience and share the merciful and healing embrace of God the Father, which makes of us one family – the family of God.