Principles for Life in the Kingdom of GodÀpẹrẹ

RESPONSIBILITIES TOWARDS YOUR FAMILY

MAIN IDEAS

• Even in those few terrible moments just before He gave His spirit, JESUS considers Himself responsible for His mother, whom He leaves in the care of a friend.

• The fact that JESUS entrusted His mother’s care to John proves that the mother-son relationship between them is over.

• We can trust the care and help of JESUS when we encounter problems in our own families.

Even in the last moments of His human life, JESUS proves that during His life He assumed responsibility for His mother. He was unmarried and had no wife or children, but as Mary’s firstborn, He accepted the fact that He was responsible for His mother, who in her old age would need to be cared for. Thus, He leaves Mary in the care of John, His closest disciple. How interesting it is that, of all the twelve disciples, John is the only one who died of old age and not as a martyr. This is a model left by JESUS for His followers, whose responsibility is to care for their earthly families with dignity. With the physical death of JESUS, Mary’s role in relation to His person also ends. We have no biblical evidence that Mary would have been entrusted with any role other than that which she had had up to that point. JESUS is the direct interceder between us and God. It is true that for a human mind, the thought that in the Kingdom of Heaven the earthly relationship between JESUS and His mother could continue is very interesting, thus ensuring an intermediate intercessor between us and JESUS, but there is nothing in the Bible to suggest this.
This earthly dimension of the relationship between JESUS and His mother and the concern He showed for her, even while crucified and in the agony of death, encourages us to trust His help in any difficult times we may pass through in our family life.