The Flight Into Egypt: The Holy Family in Exile
March 30, 2011 | XVII.Grace: To have an intimate knowledge of the Lord, to love Him more devotedly, and to follow Him more whole-heartedly.
Text for Prayer: Mt. 2:13-23
Reflection: Exile is a terrible thing, for it means that one cannot live among one’s own people. It entails alienation and the experience of being an outsider, an Other. It brings hardship, uncertainty, and fear. All of these are likely part of the Holy Family’s experience of fleeing Bethlehem shortly after Jesus is born, and they further show the poverty of the God-man who chooses to humble Himself to be born in a manger.
From what is the Holy Family fleeing? Certain death, the extinguishing of the hope of Israel, and the loss of future glory of their nation. But more than these, they are fleeing from the possibility that God’s plan for the salvation of the world might be thwarted. At this moment in the history of the world, great forces were working against God’s plan, and while they were confounded for the time being, these forces left a stream of dead infants and wailing mothers in the Holy Family’s wake. The calls for the death of the newly-born Christ would not stop until they had achieved their aim, and so it is that Jesus’s entire life is circumscribed by the promise of His death on Calvary.
Posted by Mr. Michael Wegenka, S.J. in XVII.