Having concluded the celebrations of Lent and Easter and a series of solemnities now we are back on track with the Sunday readings of the ordinary time. The gospel of today shows to us Jesus in his public ministry and the different reactions it provokes among the people. Basically, the gospel shows three types of reaction that represent three different attitudes towards Jesus. These attitudes can be found also today among Christians and in society at large. In a sense, this gospel comes to ask each one of us: where do you find yourself? What is your attitude towards Jesus? Who is Jesus for me? 

Jesus comes back to his own town of Nazareth and his relatives came to know about it. The crowds gather around the house where he is staying looking for healing. They came to him, because they know that only he could help their miseries. They came with faith that he is their salvation. But the reaction of Jesus’ relatives of is quite different: “He is out of his mind”, they concluded. They thought they knew him well since they lived together, worked together, prayed together for several years. But now they refuse to welcome him, they refuse to believe in him although they had seen miracles done by him. He is not one of us anymore, he goes beyond the limits, he has lost his mind—they seem to say.

There is another group of people in the gospel which reacts to Jesus critically as well, namely pharisees and scribes. Their accusation however is more specific—he is possessed, they claimed. Jesus’ relatives seemed to be confused and lacked understanding for the nature of his mission and person. But the pharisees go further. They accused him deliberatively for being under the power of the evil one. In front of many miracles performed by him, they denounce Jesus as an agent of evil and satan. For their hardened minds and hearts, the power of love and truth becomes a sign of evil and sin.  

But there is also a different kind of attitude towards Jesus in the gospel. In this case it is not a large group, actually one person—the mother of Jesus. To his relatives who wanted to see him he says that those who do the will of the Father are his true relatives. Jesus came to establish a new spiritual family not based anymore on the ties of blood, culture, or ethnicity. The members of this new family are tied by the bond of love bestowed on them by the Holy Spirit, they are united by the blood of Christ received in the Eucharist. The mother of Jesus who responded perfectly to the will of God in her life became the first and the more most illustrious member of that new covenantal family.

The gospel comes to ask each one of us where we find ourselves, what is my attitude towards Jesus, who is Jesus for me.