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Called to be the Holy Family of God
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December 18, 2023The modern view of liberty and freedom is grounded on the basis that the individual is the most basic cell of society. However, pondering this more seriously, we recognize many things in life we did not choose: I did not bring myself into existence, and I didn’t choose my parents or my brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. The truth is that the family is the most basic cell of society, and the Church is right to remind us of this fact frequently.
Dr. Fabrice Hadjadj, a French philosopher and writer who converted from atheism and anarchism to Catholicism in his early twenties, once described the family as the “home of holy anarchy.” He says, “It is the family in all its divinely ordained randomness that remains outside all the rationalistic controls of the technocratic society in which we live … It is the ‘school of charity’ because it is in the family where you love people you did not choose to be with.” Each family is “different, unique, and implausibly free. No meeting organizer would deliberately bring them together.” What’s more, they “may gather around the Sunday table for lunch. Still, it’s virtually impossible to keep them orderly for more than half an hour.” ‘Anarchy’ might be a good word to describe the family we either grew up in or have begun ourselves in that extraordinary adventure called matrimony. But what about the descriptive term “holy?” Are our families a place where holiness is talked about, lived, and encouraged?
We readily think of our biological families when we hear the word family. There is another family, however, that we have been predestined and called to be a part of. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, has called us to be members of His family, the Church. Let us listen to Jesus in the Gospel of Mark 3:31–35: “His mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent word to him and called him. A crowd around him told him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you.’ But he replied to them, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?” For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’”
When Jesus’ cousins (his “brothers and sisters” mentioned in the Gospel) heard these words, I wonder if they were a little puzzled and looking around at this ragbag crowd, if it crossed their minds that they weren’t quite sure whether they wanted these people to be called “family members.”
First, these beautiful words of Jesus highlight that He has called us into his family. We do not have to be blood-related to Jesus to have access to Him or feel that He would treat us differently if we were his kith and kin. In fact, the one who is closest to Jesus and related most intimately to Him is the one who does the will of God. That is what strengthens the familial bonds in his new family. Faith in Jesus through baptism makes us family members, and striving for holiness sets us apart and identifies us as his “relatives.”
Secondly, when we look around us at Holy Mass on Sundays, we should note the “divinely ordered randomness” of this family of God. We would not necessarily choose to be with these people, but God's grace unites us and is, indeed, a ‘school of charity’ where we learn to love as Christ Himself loves. “This is how all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). The Church is the holy family of God, but we have some work to do so that others may see that we belong to the one family of God.
When these two families (our biological families and the family of God) come together, something beautiful happens: what we learn and live in the “school of charity” at home is broadened to include others who we now see as “no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19–20). In this advanced school of charity, we are stretched to love, forgive, sacrifice, “stake our life on another person and find that it is worth it” (Pope Francis), accepting those around us as “brothers, sisters, and mothers.”
Our late Holy Father, Benedict XVI, pointed out during Holy Week 2007 that Jesus “at the end of his sufferings, for all the dismay which filled men’s hearts, for all the power of hatred and cowardice, he was never alone.
“There are faithful ones who remain with him. Under the Cross stand Mary, his Mother, the sister of his Mother, Mary, Mary Magdalen and the disciple whom he loved. A wealthy man, Joseph of Arimathea, appears on the scene: a rich man is able to pass through the eye of a needle, for God has given him the grace. He buries Jesus in his empty tomb in a garden. At Jesus’ burial, the cemetery becomes a garden, the garden from which Adam was cast out when he abandoned the fullness of life, his Creator. The garden tomb symbolizes that the dominion of death is about to end. A member of the Sanhedrin also comes along, Nicodemus, to whom Jesus had proclaimed the mystery of rebirth by water and the Spirit. Even in the Sanhedrin, which decreed his death, there is a believer who knows and recognizes Jesus after his death. In this hour of immense grief, darkness and despair, the light of hope is mysteriously present.
“The hidden God continues to be the God of life, ever near. Even in the night of death, the Lord continues to be our Lord and Savior. The Church of Jesus Christ, his new family, begins to take shape.”
