24 January 2017 - family plan

 [ Today's Readings ]

"Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother."

So we ought to get to work, right? In order to have this relationship with Jesus we need to do the will of God. But does this mean that the relationship is about our efforts, about our doing everything right? Not quite.

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (see John 6:28).

The letter to the Hebrews reminds us that without faith it is impossible to please God (see Hebrews 11:6). These people that come to Jesus and know this relationship with him aren't called his mother and his brother and his sisters primarily because they keep the commandments. Rather, it is precisely because they come to Jesus and believe in him.

The law is unable to make anyone perfect on its own. It only serves to remind us of our sins. It reminds us of our need for Jesus. If we try and work until we are worthy to be his family it will never happen. Being his family means sharing his relationship with the Father. By nature Jesus is the only one that can do the will of God, his Father. But he consecrates us all by that obedience, makes us able to do God's will, and so allows us to share his relationship with the Father.

Then he says, Behold, I come to do your will.
He takes away the first to establish the second.
By this "will," we have been consecrated
through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Becoming brothers and sisters of Jesus makes sense to us. But what does it mean to be his mother? It means loving him with an unconditional love that is not based on what we get out of it. It means believing in his mission even when times seem to be the most dark. Mary wants to share her love for her son with us. She wants us to trust him as she does. She wants to teach us to follow him in faith even to the cross and beyond.

I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God.