The Extended Family of Jesus Luke 8:19-21

The Mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him but were unable to join him because of the crowd. He was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they hear the word of God and act on it."

The gospel for today, as simple as it is, has far reaching significance. It speaks to the unity of the human race under the one God through the unifying power of Jesus Christ, God's only begotten son.

In God's plan, is the human race supposed to be one family? In 1950, Pope Pius XII issued and encyclical entitled Humani Generis, which among other things spoke about the origin and unity of human life and other issues relevant to our times. It decried the opinion that our human species came about through an evolution which was a mindless random selection without the supreme intelligence of the creating God.; also the view that there was no common ancestry - our first parents, Adam and Eve, as scripture tells us, but rather, because of seeming diversity in race, a multiple ancestry springing up in various places of the world. In our schools today, under the name of science, evolution with out God is strongly emphasized.

The Catholic Church has always taught that Adam and Eve were the sole source of human life, and that all men are united in this common ancestry. Then, if we have a common ancestry, why has there been so much strife and disunity among the various people of the world? According to Jewish and Christian tradition, the answer is not that complicated. It is simply sin. Right from the beginning, Cain slew his brother Abel out of jealousy. We have the allegory of the tower of Babel - men trying to build a tower to the heavens without God, resulting in a confusion of speech and the dispersion of peoples to various parts of the world.

Is there any unity among peoples today? Yes there is, often based on family, race, country, religion , common interests, etc. We have the so called nuclear family in the West, where unity of the family is minimal, in contradistinction to the extended family, common in Africa and the East Some years ago, Fr. Del Goodmen (God rest his soul) and I were having dinner at Vietnamese restaurant in Minneapolis. It was a family operation. The father told us he was afraid that his children would become Americanized and would no longer be interested in working his family restaurant which would make it very difficult to continue on and make ends meet. In Africa, because of the extended family, if parents died, the children were absorbed and taken care of by the extended family. Before the AIDS pandemic, there was no need for orphanages… In Africa, just as today's gospel story infers, cousins are called brothers and sisters and are like members of the immediate family. But the extended family only goes so far and usually stays within the tribe. And of course, tribal conflicts often result in power struggles that can even bring down a nation such as took place in Rwanda between the Tutsies and the Hutus.

But there is an answer to the need for unity within the human race which surpasses the boundaries of race and tribe - Jesus and his grace is the answer. St. Paul says in Colossians I: 10, that all things are united in him. He calls all to be one just as he is in the Father and the Father is in him (John 17:21) He calls all to be members of his extended family. As the gospel tells us today, it is just a matter of listening to his word and doing his Fathers will. All those who do so are his mother, his sisters and his brothers. And that is how it will be with the communion of saints in the kingdom of God where there will be but one fold and one shepherd.

Father Marvin Deutsch, M.M.