Gospel Reading : Luke 8:19-21
Then his mother and his brethren came to him, but they could not reach him for the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brethren are standing outside, desiring to see you.”
But he said to them, “My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it.
What do the Fathers say?
St TITUS of Bostra. Our Lord had left His kinsfolk according to the flesh, and was occupied in His Father’s teaching. But when they began to feel His absence, they came to Him,
When you hear of our Lord’s brethren you must include also the notions of piety and grace. For no one in regard of His divine nature is the brother of the Saviour, (for He is the Only-begotten,) but He has, by the grace of piety, made us partakers in His flesh and His blood, and He who is by nature God has become our brother.
The Venerable BEDE. But those who are said to be our Lord’s brethren according to the flesh, you must not imagine to be the children of the blessed Mary, the mother of God, nor the children of Joseph by another wife, as some say, but rather believe them to be their kinsfolk.
St AMBROSE. The moral teacher who gives himself as an example to others, when about to enjoin upon others, that he who has not left father and mother, is not worthy of the Son of God, first submits Himself to this precept, not that He denies the claims of filial piety, but because He knows that He is more bound to obey His Father’s mysteries.
Nor however are His parents harshly rejected, but the bonds of the mind are shown to be more sacred than those of the body.
He does not disown His mother, since she is also acknowledged from the cross; but the law of heavenly ordinances is preferred to earthly affection.
The Venerable BEDE. They then who hear the word of God and do it, are called the mother of our Lord, because they daily in their actions or words bring Him forth as it were in their inmost hearts; they also are His brethren where they do the will of His Father, Who is in heaven.
St THEOPHYLACT. But some take this to mean that certain men, hating Christ’s teaching, and mocking Him for His doctrine, said, Your mother and your brethren are standing outside, desiring to see you.”; as if thereby to shew His meanness of birth. And He therefore knowing their hearts gave them this answer, that meanness of birth harms not, but if a man, though of low birth, hear the word of God, He reckons him as His kinsman.
Because, however, hearing only saves no one, but rather condemns, He adds, and does it; for it becomes us both to hear and to do. And by the word of God He means His own teaching, for all the words which He Himself spoke were from His Father.
St AMBROSE. In a mystical sense he ought not to stand without, who was seeking Christ. For if they stand without, not even parents themselves are acknowledged. How are we acknowledged by Him if we stand without?
The Venerable BEDE. For they cannot enter within when He is teaching whose words they refuse to understand spiritually. But the multitude went before and entered into the house, because when the Jews rejected Christ the Gentiles flocked to Him. But those who stand without, wishing to see Christ, are they, who not seeking a spiritual sense in the law, have placed themselves without to guard the letter of it, and as it were rather compel Christ to go out, to teach them earthly things, than consent to enter in themselves to learn spiritual things.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from :
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
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