Aware of family

An idea which is present in the documents of the Second Vatican Council is that the family is the basic Church wherein we come to know God. The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary on the feast of Saint Joseph who was declared by Pius IX (1870) patron and protector of the universal family of the Church. This “silent man” moved, as noted in the Gospel of Matthew by Friar JudeWinkler, by a dream like his scriptural namesake Joseph, becomes the foster father of Jesus and takes on care of the Holy Family demonstrating the faith which Paul proclaims to the Romans brought righteousness to Abraham. Mary and Joseph, Friar Jude notes, were descendants of David who receives the promise from the prophet Nathan in the text from the Book of Samuel that he will be the first of a dynasty through which a Temple for the Lord within all people will be recognized. The Gospel passage from Luke allows us to see how the episode of Jesus spending time in the company of the scribes and teachers in the Temple is set as an opportunity for followers of Jesus to explore how deeply we really know Him. What are the ways in which, as Catie O'Malley of Creighton University asks that we set God up to tell him how he is supposed to work in our lives.