I Can’t Do This Alone

The “brothers” of Jesus are mentioned in the Gospel passage being read at Mass today. Could refer to his spiritual friends, disciples. Some suggest “brothers” refers to other children of Saint Joseph. More likely, the term “brothers” refers to the extended family of Jesus - for example, his cousins - since in ancient Semitic languages, the word “brother” was used to describe various familial relationships.

I prefer the third, myself, because when I visited the home of Saint Peter in the Holy Land, and looked at its foundation stones still in place, I was struck by the size of its footprint. There were many, many rooms. It was obvious that it was designed to house extended family. Whole households lived together at the time of Christ.

This interests me. It seems to me that, in many parts of the world, family members continue to live close to one another as the children age and marry, even if not in the same residence. Ours, in America, is not the only culture to have sacrificed family bonds to the gods of higher education and career. But I do think this kind of disintegration of the family has come at a cost.

The same thing has happened to the Catholic priesthood. We, priests, live together in the seminary for years, but then, after ordination, see one another only once or twice a year. We move from sharing all aspects of life together to being ”brothers,” whatever that might mean to the man now trying to live the priesthood as a relatively isolated individual.

Coming home from Medjugorje has been tough for me. At the Masses on Sunday, I likened my experience to a shuttle’s reentry into earth’s atmosphere, with its need to do so at just the right angle of approach lest it burn up. The most difficult thing has been - and this is always the hardest thing for me when I return home from pilgrimages - is no longer living together with the fellow pilgrims, with the “brothers.”

I know it’s unrealistic to imagine that we could maintain the intensity of the life we shared all week together. Nor have we despaired of the possibility of sharing life more closely now that we’ve returned - we all hope to do just that. But I do think the reason I experience some sadness when I return from pilgrimage is because of just how acutely it makes me feel the disintegrated life we live on Long Island.

It is not good for the man to be alone. Nor is God alone. Not only is God a communion of persons by His very nature, a trinity of persons, but even when He took to Himself a humanity He chose to be born into a family, and then gathered to Himself brothers and disciples as soon as He began His public ministry.

The industrial, and now the technological, revolution play a big part in the breakdown of the communal life, of course. But it strikes me that, even then, we said to Jesus, “your mother and your brothers are outside,” because, in reality, it is we who suffer under the burden of having pushed our mother and brothers to the outside of our lives. Jesus is the one bringing us back into communion with one another. Isn’t that one way to understand the Church? +