Mark 3:33 — Community Reflections

MARK 3:33 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren?”

Who are my mother and my brothers? he asked — the question is not a repudiation of Mary or the brothers but a redefinition of the category. Jesus does not say he has no mother and brothers; he asks who, in the kingdom's terms, fulfills those relational roles. The question reorients the entire framework: biological kinship is not the primary category of identity in the kingdom. The community gathered around Jesus — doing God's will, listening to his teaching, following his mission — constitutes a family that is more fundamental than the biological one. This is one of the most challenging sayings in Mark for anyone who takes family loyalty as the primary social value.

Church Fathers on Mark 3:33

Because the relations of the Lord had come to seize upon Him, as if beside Himself, His mother, urged by the sympathy of her love, came to Him.
Theophylact · 11th century

The brother of the Lord must not be thought to be the sons of the ever-virgin Mary, as Helvidius says [ed. note: The perpetual virginity of the Mother of God is reckoned by White, Bramhall, Patrick and Pearson, amongst the traditions which have ever been held in the Catholic Church. For an account of the heretics who denied it, see Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art, 3, p. 272, note x., also Catena Aurea in Matt., p 58, note c], nor the sons of Joseph by a former marriage, as some…
Bede · 8th century

But let us be assured that we are His brethren and His sisters, if we do the will of the Father; that we may be joint-heirs with Him, for He discerns us not by sex but by our deeds.
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Read all 5 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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