“Woman, behold, your son.” “Behold your mother” (see John 19:26-27). Jesus’ last words included a dramatic family re-creation from the cross. After his death, his mother and the disciple he loved would care for each other as parent and child. But this transformation was not the first time Jesus turned family upside down.  

In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers similarly startling words, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” no longer only his family of origin (Mark 3:35). We could read this as a rejection of society’s traditional kinship structures or an expansive embrace of God’s love. Might his mother and siblings not have been wounded, but deeply proud to see their beloved pour out such love? Could his widening of God’s family circle have been a profound affirmation of the human family in which he was raised?  

Picture parents sending a child to school, spouses parting before deployment, siblings welcoming a new baby, or in-laws taking an aging parent into their home. Often, we are asked to bid welcome or goodbye to the love we once knew, in order to accept a new love God wants us to learn.  

There is hidden grief in every good thing. Even family celebrations—a wedding, birth, or graduation—hold within them a sliver of loss. What once was will not be again. But this is the sacrifice of love: to widen our embrace of those whom God asks us to serve. Yet we are not alone. Look around and see how many are seated in the circle at Christ’s feet. God always gives us the ones we need.