The family: the way by which the Son of God became man
The incarnation of the Son of God, born of a woman and subject to the law in order to redeem the subjects of the law so that they might receive adoption as sons of God (cf. Gal 4,4-5), was not an event linked only to the time of his birth but embraced the whole span of Jesus' human life until the death of the cross, as St Paul tells us (cf. Phil 2,8). Vatican II expressed this by saying that the Son of God worked with human hands and loved with a human heart (cf. GS 22). His humanity therefore was not an obstacle to the revelation of his divinity, but rather the sacrament he used to manifest God and make him visible and attainable. It is wonderful to contemplate a God who loved man so much as to make him the way by which man could come to him. It is for this reason that the way of the Church is man whom she must love, serve and help to attain his fullness of life.
But because he wanted to become incarnate, God had first to seek a family, a mother (cf. Lk 1,26-38) and a father (cf. Mt 1,18-25). If God became man in the virginal womb of Mary, it was in the bosom of the family of Nazareth that the incarnate God learned to become man. To be born God needed a Mother; to grow up and become a man God needed a family. Mary was not only the one who bore Christ; as a true mother, alongside Joseph, she made the house of Nazareth a hearth where the Son of God "could become human" (cf. Lk 2,51-52).
Precisely because the incarnation of God's Son was a genuine event, his subsequent development followed in the natural manner for every human creature; there was need of a family to accept and welcome him, to accompany him, to love and collaborate with him in the development of all the human dimensions which made him a truly human "person", and all this within a plan of life that made possible the development of his own resources and the finding of meaning and success in life.
This necessary and unfailing educative function that every family must offer to its members, finds its witness in the case of the family of Nazareth in a page from the Gospel of Luke.
It is the episode of the finding of Jesus in the Temple : When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, 'Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.' He said to them, 'Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?' But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth , and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour ( Lk 2, 48-52).
In this extract we find three valuable pointers to what the family is called upon to do with regard to the children so that they become "upright citizens and good Christians". From this point of view it could be considered a well-chosen Salesian interpretation of the principle of the incarnation in an educative project.
In the first place it is not insignificant that Joseph and Mary had brought Jesus to the Temple at an age when a son must learn to fully take his place in the life of his people, following the traditions which had nourished and sustained the faith of his parents; the family of Jesus had brought him to the Temple in obedience to the law and to the practice of their faith, even though they knew that their son was the Son of God. Jesus' divine origin did not release him from the obligation, universal in Israel , to observe God's law; the Son of God learned to be man by learning to obey men.
Worthy of note too is the respectful attitude of the parents with regard to their son who, on his own account, seeks God's will for his own life. Jesus' reply suggests a sense of surprise, as though to say: "But how is it that after teaching me to call God Abba, Father, and seek always to do his will, that here and now when I am in his house for the Bar Mitzvah ceremony when I become a fully-fledged 'son of the law' to live now on in fulfilling the will of the Father, you ask me where I have been and why I have done this?" (cf. Lk 2,49). Though not yet fully adult, Jesus is reminding his parents that it was they who taught him that God and his affairs took precedence over the family and family matters.
And finally we may note that his parents' lack of understanding was no obstacle to the obedience of the son who returned with them to Nazareth ; Jesus submitted to the authority of parents who could no longer understand him. And so, the evangelist concludes, that while Mary "treasured all these things in her heart" (Lk 2,51), Jesus "increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour" (Lk 2,52). And there you have the greatest eulogy of the educational ability of Joseph and Mary. This is what it means in practice to make of a family a home and school, "a cradle of life and love, and where one first learns how to become human".
It was in a family that Jesus learned obedience to the law and became immersed in the culture of a people; it was in a family that Jesus showed his desire to give the first place to God and to be concerned primarily about the things of God; though aware that he was the Son of God, it was to family life that Jesus returned as a man among men, to grow "in age, grace and wisdom". The Son of God could have begun to live by being born of a virgin mother without the need of a family, but without a family he could not grow and mature as a man! A virgin conceived the son of God; a family made him fully human.
What more could be said about the sacrosanct value of the family! |
