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Mo NguyenDec 28 at 12:23 PM
Family Life: Family in Community
THE HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH / A
29 December 2019
REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL (Mt 2: 13-15, 19-23)
FAMILY LIFE IN GOD
The glimpse of Jesus’ family life that we read in today’s Gospel presents a picture that is far from idyllic. The Holy Family lives in a brutal and violent world. The coming of the wise men (Magi) from the East, with their consoling homage and gifts for Mary’s newborn Child, has provokes suspicion and violence on the part of King Herod. His murderous intent requires Joseph to flee with Mary and Jesus into a foreign country – to become, in effect, refugees.
But what the Gospel brings out is that it is precisely the Holy Family’s forced displacement to Egypt that enables the infant Messiah to replay the experience and captivity of his people, Israel, in Egypt, and to experience directly the liberating and saving power of God. Israel was metaphorically ‘God’s child’ (Hos 11:1), but Jesus is truly the Son of God. In the person of Jesus, God is ‘with us’ (‘Emmanuel’) in the intimacy and immediacy of family relationships, and in circumstances of danger and anxiety with which many families can identify.
Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ family life in this way may, then, be for us a greater consolation than if it were ‘idyllic’. Holiness, according to the scriptural understanding, is where God is. Today’s Gospel brings out the way in which God is present to the family of Jesus amid violence, forced movement, and perplexity. If our own family life is not perfect nor totally immune from such trials that is perhaps all the more reason to believe that God’s saving presence is also ‘with us’.
Brendan Byrne, SJ
Joseph, Mary & Jesus Escape To Egypt