Did Jesus miss having a family life?

[Sandi]

I wonder, from time to time, if our Lord every wished he’d been able to have a wife and family like other men of his day? It seems pretty clear he was especially fond of children and I wonder if he would have liked to have his own home with his own little ones around him.

Of course, that’s what he voluntarily gave up because his role in his earthly life was to be our Saviour and to offer himself as atonement for our sins.

But sometimes I do wonder if he had a certain wistfullness when he saw other people and their families?–mostly I’m thinking of children, because in His day, “family” wasn’t limited to the nuclear kind we have now but was the extended family model, with parents and cousins and grandparents and the whole community.

What do you all think?

 

[FCEGM]

I wonder, from time to time, if our Lord every wished he’d been able to have a wife and family like other men of his day? It seems pretty clear he was especially fond of children and I wonder if he would have liked to have his own home with his own little ones around him.

Of course, that’s what he voluntarily gave up because his role in his earthly life was to be our Saviour and to offer himself as atonement for our sins.

But sometimes I do wonder if he had a certain wistfullness when he saw other people and their families?–mostly I’m thinking of children, because in His day, “family” wasn’t limited to the nuclear kind we have now but was the extended family model, with parents and cousins and grandparents and the whole community.

What do you all think?

No, He didn’t miss it. He is GOD Incarnate. In His Person He had all the fullness of familial joy in the union of the Three Divine Persons.

To. . .take one step further and enter upon marriage here on earth with a concrete woman, that for Jesus would have been a nonsense. In the mystery of His proper nature, He, The God-Man, has received more than marriage with just one woman could give. For it is He Himself who give purpose and meaning to every marriage between human beings.

On the one hand the fulness of God’s Love was in Him, God’s tenderness as well as His toughness, for He was Himself God. On the other hand in His twofold nature, as God and man, He was the peerless marriage, the perfect conjunction, in His own person, between the redeeming God and redeemed humanity. In His divine nature He is the gift beyond measure, and in His humanity He is receptiveness par excellence. Thus in His emotional and sexual life as a man all tension was resolved. For His love was already satisfied and sated, was deeper and wider than He could have experience in a marriage. His physical status as man-and-celibate is the token of this. Andre Louf, Teach Us to Pray, Paulist Press, 1975.

 

[mikew262]

I wonder, from time to time, if our Lord every wished he’d been able to have a wife and family like other men of his day? It seems pretty clear he was especially fond of children and I wonder if he would have liked to have his own home with his own little ones around him.

Of course, that’s what he voluntarily gave up because his role in his earthly life was to be our Saviour and to offer himself as atonement for our sins.

But sometimes I do wonder if he had a certain wistfullness when he saw other people and their families?–mostly I’m thinking of children, because in His day, “family” wasn’t limited to the nuclear kind we have now but was the extended family model, with parents and cousins and grandparents and the whole community.

What do you all think?

Yes, the human part of him might have missed not having a family life. However, as God he might have realized, that he had a mission to complete, and having a family was not part of it.

 

[water]

Yes, the human part of him might have missed not having a family life. However, as God he might have realized, that he had a mission to complete, and having a family was not part of it.

We also see that Jesus cried when he came to know that Lazaro died. That is His human part right there!

Speaking of missing family - I think He won’t because He has a huge family in which we all are his brothers and sisters .

 

[SMHW]

While Jesus may not have had his own wife and children I suspect he had plenty of extended family.

Don’t forget all those ‘brethren’ that we always have to explain as cousins (or steps if you think Joseph was previously married.) rather than siblings. No doubt some of them had children.

I’ve heard it suggested that if Joseph died before Jesus was grown that most likely a brother of Joseph took Mary and Jesus into his home. If that’s the case, Jesus would have lived in the same home as his (legal) cousins.

I suspect Jesus experienced plenty of family life, just not that of a husband or father.

 

[jman507]

I wouldn’t doubt he might miss it in some way. To miss something, seems to be a bit of an emotion. It’s easy to play the what if game. You might know your vocation in life and be happy in your state, but might think, I wonder what it’d be like to be a missionary and kinda miss you didn’t have a chance to do that. I am sure as a human Jesus would have thought it be wonderful and miss a bit about if he had a wedding and was able to feel what it was like to have your first child, but at the same time be content with his mission. As a matter, I’m sure a delight in those joyful moments, helped him walk through his sorrowful mission, to add the crowning glory that was missing for those married folk. In the end his spouse was a bit larger, and his children all the more numorous.

 

[Tom317]

How could He miss that which He already has/had?

 

[Church_Militant]

You’re kidding right?

He’s had the family of the trinity forever and has all of us now as well.

 

[jman507]

How could He miss that which He already has/had?

For the same reason he wept at his friends death, just before he brought him back to life.

 

[Sandi]

No, I’m not kidding but now I know better than to ask a question here.

This experience has been a real learning experience and not in the way I expected.

 

[Church_Militant]

No, I’m not kidding but now I know better than to ask a question here.

This experience has been a real learning experience and not in the way I expected.

Geeze Sandi…You take offense awfully easy when none was intended.

 

[Tom317]

No, I’m not kidding but now I know better than to ask a question here.

This experience has been a real learning experience and not in the way I expected.

Jesus is God, He already has a family and always did.

 

[Tom317]

For the same reason he wept at his friends death, just before he brought him back to life.

Jesus is God, He already has a family and always did.

 

[Spirithound]

Of course, that’s what he voluntarily gave up because his role in his earthly life was to be our Saviour and to offer himself as atonement for our sins.

But sometimes I do wonder if he had a certain wistfullness when he saw other people and their families?–mostly I’m thinking of children…

Well, Jesus, being fully human as well as fully God, probably went through a discernment process similar to ours when we are discerning our vocations. I’m sure his process was quite a bit quicker, but i do believe that He was able to “make himself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom” in a spectacularly successful way.

 

[Spirithound]

ps, don’t stop posting, Sandi. This is a generally good community.

 

[jman507]

Jesus is God, He already has a family and always did.

He never did lose his friend, so why did weep? I’m not saying he missed it as a bad thing, or out of something he lacked. I’m not saying he even gave it much thought, for him to miss it would be as much as a passing comment by an aunt saying, “hey, Jesus did you ever think about being married?” If he thought for an instant that might be nice, but I have my other mission, that could very well have meant he did miss it. He was human in all things except sin. To miss something that might not be apart of your mission and vocation, is no sin, but a very human emotion. He might very well know that the family he gave up, gave him children manyfold more, to miss it might be an emotion, even if it might seem a bit out of touch with logic and you continue to do God’s will, but that is human nature and no sin.

 

[Tom317]

He never did lose his friend, so why did weep? I’m not saying he missed it as a bad thing, or out of something he lacked. I’m not saying he even gave it much thought, for him to miss it would be as much as a passing comment by an aunt saying, “hey, Jesus did you ever think about being married?” If he thought for an instant that might be nice, but I have my other mission, that could very well have meant he did miss it. He was human in all things except sin. To miss something that might not be apart of your mission and vocation, is no sin, but a very human emotion. He might very well know that the family he gave up, gave him children manyfold more, to miss it might be an emotion, even if it might seem a bit out of touch with logic and you continue to do God’s will, but that is human nature and no sin.

I did not say Jesus has no emotions. I am saying that Jesus has a family; therefore, how can one miss that which they have.

 

[Tom317]

Well, Jesus, being fully human as well as fully God, probably went through a discernment process similar to ours when we are discerning our vocations. I’m sure his process was quite a bit quicker, but i do believe that He was able to “make himself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom” in a spectacularly successful way.

God went through a discernment process about what God wanted Him to do? Huh?

 

[puzzleannie]

no I don’t believe he did if you mean in the sense of regret for his choice. Since he had the most perfect discernment of his Call from the Father, he had the most perfect acceptance of and appreciation for the gift of celibacy which was the prerequisite for his vocation. Like anyone today who has truly embraced the priesthood or religious life, through first discerning their gift of celibacy and from it their vocation, they are whole-hearted in their commitment. While they can certainly see and appreciate the good in the other vocations and states of life, and Jesus certainly studied family life with care and spoke about it often, they do not have more than passing regrets or feelings about their choice.