Virginia State Parks Staff
The other day, I read an article that recounted Prince Harry’s recent “date night” with his new bride Meghan Markle. According to the report, the couple attended a charity performance of “Hamilton” in London and was able to watch the show alongside its creator Lin Manuel Miranda. (Honestly, I’m not sure who I’m more jealous of in this scenario.)
After the show, Miranda and the royals took the stage to thank the audience for coming. In his remarks, Miranda mused that when he first composed King George III’s song (the 60’s inspired break-up ballad “You’ll Be Back”) on his honeymoon, he never imagined that one day he’d might watch it performed while sitting next to the monarch’s sixth great-grandson.
It was a great line, that caused the audience, and the Duke of Sussex, to roar with laughter, but it got me thinking about families and the folks that make up the branches of our ancestral trees. While most of us do not possess the lineage of Prince Harry whose own House of Windsor is full of notable names spanning the centuries, we all come from expansive clans of people that include the famous, the infamous and the unremarkable. It is each person’s job to take care of the leaf they are given, help it bloom, grow and transition before it falls back to the earth from which it came.
But every once in a while, there are those unlikely heroes who emerge from the group and change the world in a way no one can imagine. It’s unclear if they are destined for greatness, have greatness thrust upon them or are born with a God-given “it” factor and charisma, but they make an impact on everyone they meet. They are usually the first to demure when their uniqueness is pointed out. They often struggle with the vocation they know they are called to and they don’t always act the way we expect them to. However, when they are gone we strive to preserve the sacraments they leave us with and pass their example on to future generations.
When you stop and think about it, Jesus must have had a lot to live up to. Yes He was of God and descended from God, but we only see one strain of the family tree in today’s gospel so we don’t know how many young men in the region could have potentially been the “King of kings.” Yes, He came from the tribe of Judah and was part of the House of David, but there are a lot of names between Solomon and Joseph who do not stand out in the grand scheme of things. How many family members were willing to bet on the carpenter’s son? Surely in that big of a family, there had to be someone who was seemingly smarter and more talented than Joseph’s kid. There was that “John guy” who made quite a name for himself out in the desert, what were the odds another boy in the same generation would transcend the “Baptist” and make an even bigger mark on the world. (Remember, the Kennedys didn’t exist yet!)
Sometimes I wonder if Jesus honestly thought He could pull it off. Ensconced in the human-experience, He had to live by His own rules. He couldn’t bend anyone to His will. He had to let them make their own mistakes. He had to be willing to challenge the accepted notion of what the Messiah would be and face the consequences of man. He had to be an unlikely hero who was willing to die in order for everyone else to live. He cast his lot with humanity and claimed us all as His own.
We are lucky to be part of His family.
Today’s Readings for Mass MI 5: 1-4A or ROM 8:28-30; PS 13:6AB, 6C; MT 1:1-16, 18-23 or 1:18-23
