Commentary on the Gospel of
27 December – Feast of the Holy Family
Because in the incarnation it is not only about being born, about becoming flesh. God became human flesh; he became human in every way. That meant becoming a member of a particular family. With all that cloud of relationships, conflicts, loves, affection, care, forgetfulness, resentment, mistrust and joy that there is in every human family. It was there, in that context, that Jesus grew and became truly man. There, in that school of life that is the family, he was learning what it means to be a person, to love, to forgive, to welcome, to make decisions, to count on others. There he knew without a doubt the power of illness and death, capable of taking away those we love the most. There he learned to relate with other families, with other people, with his people, who also became his family, that big family that we know. There is no doubt about it: it was in the bosom of his family that the true incarnation of God took place. It was there that God totally assumed the human condition.
The family is made up of the people who form it, their capacity to love each other, to forgive each other, to reconcile, to be open to sharing life with other families. The family is changing. It is normal. It can change the ways in which bonds are established between people. It can change the fact that everyone lives in the same house or that they live separately. But in the end, there is one key bond in the family: love. That's the bond that keeps and will keep the family alive. That was the bond that Jesus learned to value in his family. There he discovered that it is even stronger than the bonds of blood. That is why later he spoke of God as the Father, the Abba who gathers all his children around the common table. And so that we would understand the relationship that unites us to God, he told us that we were his children and He our Father.
Today, it is our turn to take on the concrete reality of our families, with their lights and shadows, and to continue to build on them to build the kingdom, the great family of God. It is our responsibility to strengthen as much as we can the bond of love, which breaks the barriers of blood, race, etc. and unites us all in one family. Today, like Jesus, it is our turn to become incarnate in our concrete reality and to build God's family here and now.
