We Are Family

Gospel: Matthew 1: 1-16

All of us have eclectic families with a wide range of personalities and characters.  Every family has its saints, and every family has its rogues.  Jesus' family is no different.  Today's presentation of his family tree shows heroes like David and scoundrels like, well, David too.  There we find true Israelites, descendants of Abraham, as well as foreigners who find their way into the family.  This family tree is a microcosm of Israel's history: it is not white-washed or sugar coated.  It represents the best and worst of humanity.

Our families, for better or for worse, define us as who we are - both biologically through our genetics and socially in this way in which we were raised.  To embrace our past is to embrace all of it - the good and the bad, not hiding any of it.  That is the greatness of the Biblical tradition: it is brutally honest in preserving all the history, the good and the bad in all its glory and shame.  Those who would have it otherwise do a disservice to the tradition and to humanity at large.

Today's feast celebrates the birth of one of the greatest figures in the tradition in the person of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.  But in giving us the Gospel text of Jesus' genealogy the feast is also a reminder that our past and our family is not all glorious and immaculate like Mary, that it is a collection of people good and bad who, through God's mysterious providence, brought us Jesus and the definitive revelation of God on earth.