Kinship
The flowers of a peachtree are connected and bound to the tree's branches. The peachtree's branches are connected and bound to the treetrunk, the roots also are connected to the trunk. But if we take a closer look at the flowers, branches and roots, we might ask: to whom and to what are they really connected and bound? Are they more connected and bound to one another or to the earth? Are they more connected and bound to themselves or to water and oxygen? There is no doubt. The true connection and bond of the peachtree is with the earth, with water, with oxygen. It is only to the measure in which all the peachtree's parts are harmoniously, perfectly, definitely connected with their source of life--the earth, the water, oxygen-- that a beautiful and effective relationship is possibile between the different parts of the peachtree itself. The same is true for people and for all of their family and affective ties and connections. People's family ties are infinite, determined by blood lines and love relationships; nevertheless if they are not connected with the primal source of their life, which is the Spirit of God, they cannot be connected and bound to one other in any way. It is only to the measure in which men are harmoniously, perfectly, definitly connected with the source of their life, who is God, the Lord and his Word, a Word which expresses and reveals His thoughts and His heart, that they can have a beautiful, efficacious connection with different family and affective ties. They said to Jesus: Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you, but Jesus answered that he had no ties with anyone, not even to the person who gave birth to him, his sweet mother. My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it. This sentence pronounces the most unheard, stunning, greatest revelation of human history. When men and women understand, with love and intelligence, this truth, their entire life will suddenly change and mankind will really evolve in light and peace for everybody, on every level, from social to scientific, from spiritual to relational. Jesus explained here how there cannot be any useful, freeing, alive, real, effective connection if not in the spirit, in the spiritual connection with Him and with the knowledge and decision to realize the wisdom of his Word. Mary is for sure Jesus' mother, not only because she carried Him in her womb, gave birth to him, fed, cared, protected him, and provided for his education, but also and mostly because she is the one who, first and foremost is his perfect disciple. Mary comprehended, in the fullest and surest way, that she should never ask, claim, demand a loving and trusting relationship with her Son just in the name of the priority granted her for having given birth to Him. Hers is a deep, wonderful, complete, irrepetible bond of trust, unity and abandonment in Him; it is the unique and perfect way in which Mary is disciple to Jesus that makes her the Mother of the Lord. And the same is true for all human and affective relations in human history. They are a useless and pretentious if they are not connected in the spirit's intimacy to the Spirit, to the very source of life, beyond all confessional and historical forms in which God is known and praised.
And they are a useless and pretentious if people demand, claim, ask for love and a relationship without sharing in their souls and hearts the quest for justice, for sharing and for the Beatitudes. Even if the evangelic Beatitudes are not heard with the ears, they can be lived with the heart and with actions. My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it. Jesus' kinship, God's kinship is unequivocal, unmistakable; it is made up of all who in every time and place listen to his Word with all their heart and act on it. It is obvious that for Jesus' Word we are referring not only to the gospel but also to texts God inspired and wrote - since the beginning of time - in every man's heart which Jesus summarizes in the first and greatest law: Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7: 12; Luke 6:31).