Fr Agustinus Sutiono O.Carm

Long time ago, there was a famous common knowledge among the religious priests, differenciated from the diocesan priest, that once someone decided to join with religious life whether as a priest or religious, they have to forget his family and their concern, change their original name and take up a new religious name. Managing to ignore the family and its situation was considered a virtue. If happened that his or her family visited him, it would be commented as a weak personality or seen suspiciously as seeking for a help. Now, the situation is much better, more human and just. There is no term such as an ex of the family member. The family remains as a family, not only for the related religious but also counted as family for the whole brotherhood of his religious congregation. This personal experience and view came up into my mind at any time I read the passage of the gospel today.

Jesus left the house for the sake of proclaiming the Kingdom of God and explaining its righteousness. Fort this work, he was known to become a new emerging teacher who gained so much fame for his powerful teaching and the wonders that he performed as the signs of the truth of the message he brought. That might become a pride for his family to have Jesus as member of the family, and the family could participated in his greatness. The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him but were unable to join him because of the crowd. There was no mention at all about the motivation. In other places in the Gospel, we find that his family showed a big concern to Jesus as a member of the family, wanted to save him and to pick him up. However, Jesus needed to make an important point to respond the report that his mother and his brothers were standing outside and they wished to see him. He said to them in reply: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”

Of course, Jesus did not want to deny his family and at the same time he did not want to confuse himself with the focus of his mission. However, there is something to fix. He made it clear that as the Son of God, those whom he considered to become his brothers and mother were those who were in the same spirit with him, that is, those who surrendered themselves to the will of God, heard his voice and acted on it. With those expression, Jesus praised Mary his sanguinal mother as a mother in spirit too. So, every claim of sanguinal closeness in relation to Jesus is not important at all. The true closeness and relation to Jesus is determined by whether we do the will of God or not, not by how frequent we pray or come to the mass, but by whether we do the will of God or not. And this is the will of God, that we believe in Jesus Christ. The only proof that we believe in Jesus is when we embed his thoughts, characters, concerns and words to our concrete daily life. So, good and calm reasoning, not anger, is the best way to deal with misunderstanding or unconsidered accusation. By those saying, Jesus opens widely to everyone to build a close relationship with Him in a spiritual way.