We Are the Family of God

15 September 2025  John 19:25-27

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

“Standing by the cross were His mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas….” John 19:25

From the cross Jesus could see not just one, but several members of His own family.

There was Mary, his mother, of course. But there was also Mary the wife of Clopas, His mother’s sister, Jesus’ aunt. There was also the “disciple whom He loved,” John. John (and James) were Jesus’ first cousins, sons of Salome, another of Mary’s sisters, and Zebedee. Clopas (elsewhere in the New Testament spelled Cleopas) was Jesus’ uncle, and Jesus made a special visit to him on the Emmaus Road on Easter evening (cf. Luke 24:13-35). Also on Easter, Jesus paid a visit to his “brother” James. James may have been a step-brother, or another cousin (biblical Hebrew doesn’t have a word for ‘cousin’ so words like ‘brother’ were often used instead), and he was skeptical about Jesus during his earthly ministry, even tried to scoop Jesus up one day because he thought Jesus was out of His mind (cf. Mark 3:21). But after Easter James became a sturdy believer, and one of the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, the primary leader after Peter left for Rome. The disciples James and Jude (sons of ‘Alphaeus’, the Latin rendering of Cleopas) were also cousins of Jesus and disciples. They were not present at Calvary, but they were at Easter.

Even if most of the disciples had fled from Gethsemane, Jesus had a lot of family around Him in His hour of greatest need, and later in His hour of greatest triumph.

Blood really is thicker than water.

So, when Jesus said, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50), it may not have been a slam on His family. They had questions, certainly, but they stayed with Him. They are with Him still.

The language of the family is everywhere in the Church. Priests are called Father. Nuns are called Sister, nuns in charge of other nuns are called Mother. Monks are called Brother. God is called Father, Christ our Elder Brother, the Church the Family of God. From the beginning, Family remains the model of closeness and cooperation that we are trying to achieve. Culturally and civilizationally, the family is the institution where people learn language, norms, morals and customs. It plays a primary role in the development of personality, values, and a sense of confidence and security. Nothing has ever been able to replace the family, and every civilization that has undercut the family, either by neglect or by trying to replace it with some government agency, has undercut its own foundations. Every civilization that has persisted in that has collapsed. The evidence is overwhelming.

Mary did not manage her sorrow on her own. Jesus did not endure His pain on His own. There was never a time when they did not have family around them, and today we regard all the people we can identify from Jesus’ family as saints. Cultures have come and gone, civilizations have risen and collapsed, but the family of God is still here.

When we remember Our Lady of Sorrows, her family gathers around her still. She is never alone, and neither are we. Other civilizations will certainly fall, and Our Lady of Sorrows will mourn with her family as God our Father gets ready to build again.