Homily | July 21, 2026 | Mary’s Unbroken Yes To God | (Episode 204)

Have you ever heard someone say, It sounds like Jesus was disrespecting his mother?

At first glance, today's gospel can almost sound that way.

Jesus is told, Your mother and your brothers are outside asking to speak with you.

And he responds, Who is my mother?

Who are my brothers?

Now, if we stop reading there, we completely misunderstand what Jesus is doing.

He's not diminishing the blessed mother.

He's revealing the secret of her greatness.

Notice what Jesus says next.

Stretching out his hand towards his disciple, he says, Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.

That's not a rejection of Mary.

It is the greatest compliment he could possibly give her.

Why?

Well, because no human being ever did the will of the Father more perfectly than his mother, Mary.

From the very first moment the angel Gabriel appeared, her entire life became one great yes.

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.

Let it be done to me according to your word.

Mary never stopped saying yes.

She said yes at Nazareth, she said yes when they had to flee into Egypt.

She said yes during the hidden years of Jesus' life.

She said yes at Cana when she directed the sermons.

Do whatever he tells you.

She said yes at the foot of the cross when every human reason for hope had disappeared.

Her entire life was one continuous act of trust.

Mary is not blessed primarily because she gave birth to Jesus.

She's blessed because she believed, because she listened, she obeyed, she surrendered her entire life to God's will.

In another gospel, a woman in the crowd cries out to Jesus, Blessed is the womb that carried you.

Jesus responds, rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.

Again, he's not correcting the woman.

He's explaining what Mary, who Mary is and why she's blessed.

The early church fathers love to reflect on this.

Saint Augustine said that Mary conceived Christ in her heart through faith before she conceived him in her womb.

In other words, before she carried Jesus physically, she first welcomed him spiritually.

That's why she's the model of every disciple.

Before Christ can be brought into the world through our words and actions, he must first dwell within our hearts.

Mary is the first and greatest disciple, there's no doubt.

It's exactly what Jesus is teaching us today.

The deepest relationship we can have with Christ is not biological, it is spiritual.

You and I will never be his biological relatives, but every one of us has become part of his family.

How?

Well, by doing the will of the Father.

Think about what an extraordinary invitation that is.

Jesus is not merely inviting us to admire him from a distance, he's inviting us into his own family.

When we were baptized, we did not simply join an organization, we became sons and daughters of the Father, brothers and sisters of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit.

The church is not simply a place we attend.

She is the family into which we have all been reborn.

And that brings us to the first reading.

The prophet Micah asks one of the most beautiful questions.

Who is there like you?

The God who removes guilt and pardons sins.

Then he gives us one of the most beautiful images.

You will cast into the depths of the sea all of our sins.

Think about that.

When something disappears into the deepest part of the ocean, no one can retrieve it.

And that's how God wants us to think about his mercy.

When we sincerely repent, he does not keep dragging our paths before us.

He forgives us, he restores us, and he begins again.

And then Micah says something that should fill us with every sinner with hope.

God delights in mercy.

He does not merely show mercy because he has to, he delights in it.

He rejoices when his children return home.

And that's the heart of the Father.

Perhaps many of us need to hear that today.

Some people have confessed the same sin a hundred times, yet they still believe God is tired of forgiving them.

He is not.

If your repentance is sincere, his mercy is always greater.

The cross has always proven that.

Mary understood that mercy better than anyone because she knew the heart of her son.

And she teaches us that holiness is not about living a perfect life.

Holiness begins with saying yes.

Yes to God's will, yes to his mercy, yes to following Christ, even when the road leads to Calvary before it leads to the empty tomb.

Today Jesus asks every single one of us the same question.

Who belongs to my family?

And the question is not determined by our last name.

It's determined by our nationality.

It's not determined by our nationality, it's not even determined by how many years we have attended church.

No, it is determined by one thing.

Do we hear the Father's voice?

Do we trust his mercy?

Are we willing, like Mary, to say yes to his will every single day?

If we do, then we're not merely followers of Jesus.

We become members of his own family.

And there, well, there's no greater privilege, no greater identity, no greater joy than to be able to say, Well, I, I belong to the family of Christ.

Amen.