Thursday of the 3 week of Advent ‘b’

MT 1:1-17

I always wondered how to think about the reading of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Such a long reading with so many names, most of them even impossible to pronounce. Why such a Gospel reading? But when I think about it more carefully, I see that this Gospel reading helps me realize that no family is perfect. We do want to have exemplary families and famous ancestors, but we all know very well that in each family there may be somebody that we are not so proud of. So today we read about Jesus’ family and His ancestors, going back many generations; and we can see that even the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and amazingly even Jesus himself did not always have an exemplary list of holy people among their ancestors. So, I have learned today that I should never judge anyone by the actions of their family members, because even in the worst families, there could be a saintly person and that I am also called to be a saint despite my family and my ancestors.