Contemplating today's Gospel
Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)
For this reason, when he came into the world, he said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, As is written of me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do your will, o God. First he says, Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in. These are offered according to the law. 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.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me. Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not; then said I, «Behold I come».
I announced your justice in the vast assembly; I did not restrain my lips, as you, o Lord, know.
Your justice I kept not hid within my heart; your faithfulness and your salvation I have spoken of; I have made no secret of your kindness and your truth in the vast assembly.
“Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother”
Fr. Josep GASSÓ i Lécera (Ripollet, Barcelona, Spain)Today we contemplate Jesus—in a very specific and, at the same time, compromising scene—surrounded by a crowd of people from the town. Jesus' closest relatives have arrived from Nazareth to Capernaum. But given the size of the crowd, they remain outside and send for him. They say to him, "Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you" (Mark 3:32).
In Jesus' response, as we will see, there is no hint of rejection of his relatives. Jesus had distanced himself from them to follow the divine call, and now he shows that he has also inwardly renounced them: not out of cold-heartedness or contempt for family ties, but because he belongs completely to God the Father. Jesus Christ has personally accomplished in himself what He rightly asks of his disciples.
Instead of his earthly family, Jesus has chosen a spiritual family. He looks at the people sitting around him and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother" (Mark 3:34-35). Saint Mark, in other parts of his Gospel, recounts other instances of Jesus looking around at those present.
Does Jesus mean to tell us that only those who listen attentively to his word are his relatives? No! His relatives are not those who merely listen to his word, but those who listen to and do the will of God: these are his brother, his sister, and his mother.
What Jesus is doing is an exhortation to those sitting there—and to all—to enter into communion with Him by fulfilling the divine will. But, at the same time, we see in his words praise for his mother, Mary, the ever blessed one for having believed.
Thoughts on Today's Gospel
“Her nearness as a Mother would have been of no profit to Mary, had she not borne Christ in her heart after a more blessed manner than in her flesh.” (Saint Augustine).
“`My soul magnifies the Lord’ (Lk 1:46). In these words Mary expresses her whole programme of life: not setting herself at the centre, but leaving space for God; only then does goodness enter the world.” (Benedict XVI).
“‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word’ (Lk 1:37-38). Thus, giving her consent to God's word, Mary becomes the mother of Jesus. Espousing the divine will for salvation wholeheartedly (...), she gave herself entirely to the person and to the work of her Son.” (Catechism Of The Catholic Church, Nº 494)
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