Today’s Gospel:  Luke 8:19-21

REFLECTION
God did not intend for us to be alone, but to be with others.  He gives us many opportunities for developing relationships with family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. But why does Jesus, in today's Gospel, seem to ignore his own relatives when they pressed to see him?

Jesus never lost an opportunity to teach his disciples a spiritual lesson or truth about the kingdom of God.  On this occasion when many gathered to hear Jesus he pointed to another and higher reality of spiritual kinship, namely the family of God.

Jesus changes the order of relationships and shows that true kinship is not just a matter of flesh and blood.  Our adoption as sons and daughters of God transforms all our relationships and requires a new order of loyalty to God and his kingdom.  We can be Jesus' mother, brothers, and sisters if we hear God's word and act on it. We can be in Jesus' immediate family and be so close to Him that He lives in us and we in Him - if only we hear and do the word of God.

Christ established a new family in which we find the intimacies of love, not in the circumstances of blood ties but in the deeper loyalties of doing God's will. God's will reaches deeper into our lives than do the roots of family trees.  Let us listen and hear God's word and act on it; by doing so we become mother, sister, and brother to Jesus.

- MA

Today’s Reading:  Proverbs 21:1-6, 10-13

PRAYER
Almighty Father,  thank you for the gift of family and friends. Teach me how to live and enjoy the expanded family that you provide me with.  Help me to love them with charity and grace. May I always prefer your will and seek to do what is right and good in all my relationships. In Jesus’ Name we pray.  Amen.