And while he was saying all these
things in the power of the Father’s majesty, it was told to him that outside
his mother and brothers awaited him. Extending his hand toward the disciples,
he responded that they are his brothers and his mother, and whoever follows the
will of the Father, that person is his brother, and his sister, and his mother.
As a benefit to all people, he establishes himself as that model of action and
thought as it pertains to the rights and title of all his relatives, not merely
by the virtue of birth, We must not think that he felt disdain for his mother,
whose experience of suffering produced in him a feeling of the greatest
solicitude. There is also a figurative reason disclosed in this event: his
mother and brothers stood outside although they, as others did, had the
opportunity of at least coming to him. Because he came to his own people and
his own did not recognize him, in his mother and brothers are prefigured the synagogue
and the Israelites, who refrained from approaching and entering. (Hilary of
Poitier, Commentary on Matthew, 12,24 in Hilary of Poitiers: Commentary on
Matthew [trans. D. H. Williams; The Fathers of the Church 125; Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012] 151-52)
