Gospel: Mark 3:20-21
They went home. The crowd began to gather again and they couldn’t even have a meal. Knowing what was happening, his relatives came to take charge of him. “He is out of his mind,” they said.

Reflections
“He is out of his mind.”
Many of the saints had to overcome opposition from own families. When St. Clare ran off to join St. Francis and his bro­thers, her relatives tried to drag her back by force. When Thomas Aquinas wished to join the Do­minicans, his family had him locked in the family castle. Even Pope Francis, as a young man, found it difficult to confide in his parents that he felt called to the priesthood. Parents want their children to be successful and happy—according to their own notions. They find it difficult to accept that their children want something different: to choose a path that gives them meaning, even if it is a hard path. No doubt the disciples’ pa­rents worried when their sons left home to follow a strange, wandering rabbi—to see “where he was staying.” How much their worries must have increased when they heard about the controversy and conflict that surrounded Jesus. Had their chil­dren been caught up in a dangerous cult? Even the relatives of Jesus feared that he was “out of his mind” and tried to take charge of him. Perhaps that is why he rejected the claims of kinship, proclaiming that those who did the will of God were his true rela­tives.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019