There is something very reassuring about Luke’s Holy Family. For him, the most important element was not the ‘holy’ but the ‘family’. What made Jesus the man he grew to be was not an environment of closeted privilege but the sacramental ordinariness of peasant life. The lineage back to David that includes so many ‘black sheep’ that few would admit to it; the young woman – perhaps a second wife; a home in the Galilee surrounded by extended family; a life of habit and tradition – the presentation in the Temple; the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
But as the saying goes; everyone is ordinary until you get to know them. Thanks to the time Luke spent with Mary, we have these anecdotes that may have suggested something more. The meeting between Elizabeth and Mary; the Presentation in the Temple and then this memory of ‘the first time we thought we had lost him’. Moments any mother would hold in her heart and that time would lend meaning to.
How many of us have shared similar stories over the past few days in family get-togethers? Stories of signs and adventures; dares and disasters that all feed into the people that we become – the ones most likely to… and the ones who never did…And the parents and family who love us unwaveringly despite it all. We should not look at Mary, Joseph and Jesus with envy or a sense of inferiority – black sheep or otherwise we have been adopted – we are all family – we are all holy.