Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Ordinarily, when we think of family, we think of a natural relationship. We are born into a family, and its members are who they are. We may not always like them. We may even sometimes wish we could get rid of them. But they remain our family.

That natural bond shapes our customs, our affections, and the way we respond to one another. When family arrives, we acknowledge them and attend to them. Somewhere deep within us, we know that this is simply what we ought to do. Hopefully we do it willingly, out of love—but even when we do not feel like it, we still sense the obligation.

That is what makes the Lord’s response in today’s Gospel so surprising. His family arrives and he is told that his mother and his brethren are waiting outside. Yet instead of going out to them, he points to his disciples and identifies them as his family. To us, that sounds shocking.

But Jesus is not rejecting the idea of family. He is revealing something new: the family of God, the family of the Kingdom.

Scripture teaches that through baptism into Christ and union with his Body, we become God’s adopted sons and daughters. Yet in this Gospel, Jesus emphasizes how that identity must be lived. His family consists of those who do the will of his Father.

Not merely those who did God’s will once in the past. Not merely those who have been baptized or who profess the right faith, but those who are actively doing the Father’s will now.

Belonging to the family of God is not simply a natural relationship that we can take for granted. It calls for a choice—an act of the will. At every moment, we are choosing either to live as members of God’s family or to step away from that life.

This is especially important when we feel distant from God. In those moments, we should ask ourselves honestly: Am I truly following God’s will, or am I simply resting on my laurels?

Sometimes a feeling of distance may indeed be part of a trial through which God is refining and strengthening us. But at other times, the problem is much simpler: we have stopped listening. God has been speaking to us and drawing us along a particular path, but we have refused to follow.

Sometimes the answer is simply greater fidelity. We need to listen more carefully and respond more obediently. The closeness and intimacy we desire will return when we return to the life of God’s family by doing the Father’s will.

So let us strive, at every moment of our lives, to listen to our heavenly Father—to hear and discern his will and then to put it into action—so that we may truly be the mothers, brothers, and sisters of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.