CELEBRATING ALL ' FAMILY Most of us have an immediate family into which we are born and we also have an extended family of uncles and aunts and cousins. Jesus had his immediate family, Mary and Joseph. And he also had an extended family. On this feast of the , I think we should celebrate all his family because if we want to know and love Jesus, we really should get to know and love all his family.

We know, from tradition, that Jesus' grandparents on his mother's side were Joaquin and Anna. They were also the parents of his mother's sisters one of whom was called, according to John's (19, 25) "Mary of Cleopas". She was one of that stood at the foot of the cross with , and Mary, his mother. Her husband, Cleopas, (or ), has been identified as Joseph's brother. So you had the situation of 2 brothers (Joseph and Cleopas) marrying 2 sisters (Mary and Mary of Cleopas). Some scholars believe that Cleopas whom Jesus encountered on the road to (Lk 24, 18) was her husband and that "the other with him" was his wife, Mary. Thus, Jesus' aunt and uncle were the ones that recognized him "in the breaking of the bread" and went back to to announce this to the other disciples and kept on announcing the resurrection of their nephew, Jesus, to the early church. Mary's other sister, , the wife of and the mother of James and John lived in Capernaum and apparently formed, what we would call "a fishing cooperative, with the brothers, Peter and Andrew.

On his father's side, according to the genealogy of Matthews gospel, Jesus' grandfather, Joseph's father, was Jacob (also the father of Cleopas). And Jesus' cousins ("brothers and sisters") according to the gospel of Matthew (13, 55) and Mark (6, 3), were: James, Simon and Jude, and (Joseph) and the "sisters" Salome and Mary who could well have been the children of Cleopas and Mary. Some scholars believe that the of James and Jude were written by these cousins.

The more recent lives of Jesus (Pagola's and Lohfink's), based on recent excavations in the Holy Land, tell us that the extended family often arranged their homes in what we might call a cluster or compound around an interior patio. This arrangement served many purposes, among which were protection and utility. They could share a common outdoor cooking area, an area for keeping animals, and possibly a common well. And this inner patio was a place for the children to play under the supervision of their parents and also for the families to join together for the common daily prayers. We know that Cleopas and Mary had a son named Simon (or ) who became, after James, the second Bishop of Jerusalem. So, we can imagine these children, and the others named by Mark and Matthew, as playing together in the patio and easily being seen as the "brothers and sisters" of Jesus.

We also know that Jude, cousin of Jesus, had two sons, Zoker and James, and in their testimony before the emperor, Domitian, they testified that they were farmers who worked a small family farm of some 12-24 acres which was probably originally owned by their grandparents, Joseph and Cleopas. Since it was a relatively small farm, Joseph and Jesus had to look for additional work as carpenters or construction workers, in the town of Sepphoris which Herod was building within walking distance of Nazareth. Jesus also had other relatives in Ein Kerem close to Jerusalem where Zachariah and Elizabeth lived with their son, John, who later was called "the Baptist".

This history of Jesus' immediate and extended family has surfaced more recently and now we know much more about how Jesus lived and worked in these "hidden years" and about the group of uncles and aunts and cousins with whom he interacted. And it is meaningful, on this feast of the Holy Family, to celebrate Jesus' immediate and extended family. And to ask them all for a blessing today as children often do in Latino families when they say to their elders, "Bendición" or, "give me a blessing". We can say the same today to the family of Jesus, "Give us all your blessing". AMEN.