
Jul 21
The Joy of the Holy Gospel according to Pope Francis (Mt 12,46-50)

This word of Jesus, if we think about it carefully, generates a new way of understanding the family.
Do you see? At the beginning I addressed you by calling you “brothers and sisters”. It is not merely a formula, a conventional turn of phrase. No. It is a reality, a new reality generated by Jesus Christ. And as I was saying, this word of Jesus radically renewed the family, so that the strongest, most important bond for us Christians is no longer that of blood, but of the love of Christ. His love transforms the family, freeing it from the dynamics of selfishness, which derive from the human condition and from sin; he frees it and enriches it with a new bond, even stronger but free, not dominated by the interests and conventions of kinship, but animated by gratitude, recognition, and reciprocal service. (…) Roots are important! And let us give thanks to God for the gift of life and for those who have transmitted it. But above all, let us give thanks because Jesus Christ has called us to be part of his family, in which what counts is doing the will of the Father who is in Heaven. (Pope Francis, Address to the pilgrimage of the diocese of Asti, 5 May 2023)