A Christmas card depicting “The Whole Holy Family” finally found its way to my desk in mid January. Mary’s parents Anne and Joachim join their daughter, Joseph, and Jesus in this rendition.

The artist’s talent provides a creative way of thinking about the long genealogies in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The picture and the texts remind us that Jesus was part of a large extended family about which we know almost nothing.

The Church too is a kind of large extended family, so large in fact that we never even meet most of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. The articles in this edition of Jesuit Journeys introduce us to a few of these extraordinary brothers and sisters of ours, suggesting why they are worth getting to know.

Thanks for being such devoted brothers and sisters to so many Jesuits and Jesuit ministries. I pray that the Holy Family inspires us all to love one another as God has loved us.

Your brother in the Lord, James E. Grummer, SJ Provincial