Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Sisters and Brothers. These are probably not new words to us. If we come from a large family, they are part of our identity. Equally, if we have had a close friendship, it is as though the friendship is shaped into a bond just as strong as family; our friends become our brothers and sisters. Perhaps, even more importantly, these words are at the heart of our identity as part of the Church Catholic. We are more than a social group, more than people with common interests: we are a community of brothers and sisters, a family that is the Body of Christ.
When we step back from these relationships, what is it that makes them so close? What do these seemingly simple and common words suggest about the relationship they describe? It is not simply that I love this person, or that I am bound to them by blood, because these are present in other relationships. When I reflect on my own experience of this closeness, I would say it has to do with a mutual knowing of each other. While we are different people, there is a knowledge of each other that transcends the boundaries of physical separation. Our love for each other is mutually practiced and lived in daily patterns.
I feel like this needs an illustration. As I am writing this, my family and I are still adjusting to our move to Dayton. We moved here this past July in order for me to start graduate studies in Theology at the University of Dayton. In our choice to move to Dayton, we were also choosing to separate ourselves from a group of people we consider to be our brothers and sisters. This was a small group of people who we shared our faith, our life and everyday experiences with. They are more than friends, even more than community. They are our family. So what is this “knowledge of each other that transcends physical separation”? What is this mutually practiced love and knowing?
The first thought that comes to my mind is when Holly (my wife) and our friend (read: sister) Karli are cooking together. We used to share meals a couple times a week before we moved to Dayton, now these meals are obviously sparse, but the following is all the more true. When they cook together, without using words, they know each other’s movements, method and intentions. They don’t have to explain what they are doing or how they will do it, because somehow they already know. In the time they have spent with each other, sharing life and doing these practices has shaped their relationship. They love each other. This love is witnessed by the food they create.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes the bold statement that “whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother”. In these few words uttered by Jesus, we are called into relationship with our Creator. Again, words we have heard before: Relationship with God. For me, many times these words seem a bit over-used, even hollow because of how often we hear them. But what has continued to interest me about Christianity is that we worship a God that comes to us, a God that desires to be known. Here, Jesus defines what the relationship is: we are the brothers and sisters of Christ. To be in relationship with God is a calling to daily practice, to a love that transcends boundaries of the physical and to a mutual knowing. May we come to have a glimpse of what is means to be the brothers and sisters of Christ, and may our mutual love for each other (God and us) bear the fruit of God’s Kingdom.
-Tyler DeLong