VI Mystery: The Sacred Family, a Triangle of Love and Harmony - Part II

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’  Luke 2:46-48

They observe without judging
It seems that Jesus' parents were already well versed in the norms of the nonviolent communication, because they did not judge, criticize or punish Jesus for his behavior. They simply observed their son’s behavior and passed this observation unto him. In passing their observation to Jesus, they did so assertively, not aggressively, taking care to assume responsibility for their feeling of distress, without accusing Jesus of being the cause of this affliction.

They do not intend to have the last word
He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them.  Luke 2:49-50

During our childhood, it was always our parents who had the last word in the family. The same is not true in the Holy Family of Nazareth. In this episode, it is Jesus who has the last word; the ignorance and the lack of understanding of Jesus' parents about his life and ministry did not make them violent or make them insist that they are always right.

As St. Paul says, he did not use his privileges, humbling himself to death, even death on a cross
Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom ad in years, and in divine and human favour. Luke 2:51-52

Jesus must have been a child prodigy, like so many in our world. Excelling in many things that certainly caused his parents and neighbours to marvel. However, in addition to all the talents Jesus possessed, an attitude of humility was inherent in his person that made him comply obediently with his parents’ demands.

Joseph the Dreamer
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet (Hosea 11:1), ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’  Matthew 2:13- 15

Joseph transcended his own ego and heard God’s word which he promptly obeyed and set out for Egypt to save his son's life. The Holy Family knows what it is like to be persecuted politically, and they know what it is like to be political refugees and immigrants in a country that was not their own. They were fleeing from genocide which is something that has always happened and still happens in our world. And the worst genocide of our time is abortion. The human being is the only animal that intentionally kills its own offspring.

Herod the Great thought it was justifiable in the eyes of his subjects to kill so many innocent children for fear that one of these little innocents would steal his throne. Leaders like this have always filled and still fill the world: people who fall in love with the power they have amassed and have no plan of ever letting it go, capable of anything in order to keep it within their grasp.

When each family member sets aside his or her own personal projects, like Joseph did, to obey the common project that is always the one that God inspires in our hearts and souls, then all family members find happiness and self-realization. Herod only loved Herod and his own ambitions; and this led him to even murder his own children.

Joseph is always at the service of his family, so the family comes first. Herod puts his projects first and his family last; we have many examples of great politicians who have troubled delinquent children because their families are dysfunctional since the parents who, like Herod, always put their projects first. The children of the famous, unlike their parents, are rarely famous...

Many parents, in their jobs, work overtime because their boss makes them think that they are indispensable: the parents gladly accept this, since this means more income for the family. They say that they do not want their children to lack anything, but, in reality, their children lack the most important thing: the parents’ presence and love, for which there is no substitute. The fallacy is that if the worker dies or gets sick, the boss quickly replaces him or her with another. It is in the family, as a father or a mother, that the worker is truly irreplaceable.

What Jesus’ relatives think of him
When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’  Mark 3:21

A mother who has kept silent all her life and held in her heart all the things that she did not understand with regard to her son’s life and ministry, is not going to have an attitude like that described to us by the evangelist St. Mark. It was the other relatives, the cousins of Jesus, one of them probably James who was later the leader of the first Christian community in Jerusalem, it was these relatives of Jesus, not his own mother, who were antagonistic to his ministry. It was these same relatives who would later enter into conflict with Jesus' disciples.

In a monarchy, the person who succeeds the king is a relative of the king, if he does not have any legitimate children. The leader of the Christian community was not Peter, as we might have thought by the order of the Master, but rather Jesus' cousin, James the Lesser. We see this clearly at the Council of Jerusalem, when they debated as to whether or not to force Christians who were not Jews to respect the Jewish laws. Peter inspires the decision, but it is James who decides, for it is he who has the last word.

The conflict between Jesus' relatives and Jesus' disciples could have happened in the Church as it did with the Muslims where a great conflict still exists between the Shiites who descended from the prophet through Fatima, his favorite daughter, and the Sunnis who descended from the prophet’s first disciples.

Jesus made it very clear that true disciples, that is, the ones who hear his word and put it into practice are his mother, brothers and sisters (Luke 8:21).

And so that not a shadow of doubt remains, on the cross Jesus called John, the beloved disciple, the son of his own mother, and he called his own mother the mother of his favorite disciple (John 19:26).

The Mother of Jesus and our mother
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. John 19:26-27

The Gospels present a Jesus who is sometimes distant and showing little regard for his mother. However, the proof that this is not true is here. Even at the height of his suffering on the cross, Jesus does not forget his mother, he does not forget that, like the widow of Nain to whom he gave back the life of her son, his mother was a widow, and was witnessing the death of her only son and preparing to be alone in the world.

The grandmother, with her trembling hands, one day accidentally dropped a fine porcelain China plate belonging to her daughter, at whose home she lived. The daughter became furious with her own mother and ordered her son to go and buy a plastic plate from which she was to eat from then on. The boy looked at his mother with an air of disapproval and refused to do her bidding. However, he eventually had to obey her and off he went. Upon returning home, he set two plastic plates on the table. The irritated mother asked him why did he buy two plastic plates when she had told him to buy only one. "The other," said the young man, "is for you when you're old like grandma."

Parents provide for their children in their childhood and children should provide for their parents in their old age. But this is not always the case in this world where what counts is being a consumer and a producer. When you cannot be one or the other, you are made to think that you have no place in this society.

Conclusion – Just as Jesus is for us, as individuals, the Way, the Truth and the Life, his family, the Holy Family, is also for us, as members of a family, a model of family life to imitate.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC