Some children go through a stage in life when they become dissatisfied with their family and their home. Usually it is not a very serious or disruptive phase. They simply envy a friend and his home and think they would like to be part of his family. The fact is that they experience the family of the friend on a very superficial level when they are at their best. It is the old idea that the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence.

And yet there is a profound sadness when anyone senses that he is on the outside looking in, when he feels excluded from some relationship which he sees as beautiful. God entered into an especially beautiful relationship with the chosen people. He was their God and they were His beloved people. With the coming of Jesus Christ that relationship was broadened. As we say in the second Eucharistic prayer, "For our sake he opened his arms on the cross". He did so to embrace us and all of humankind with His Father's love.

Our first reading explains that "this means that we are strangers and aliens no longer". We are not on the outside looking in. We are "fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God". By God's favour and the sacrifice of His Son on the cross we have been drawn into God's family, made full members of that family with the right of inheritance.

We ought to rejoice in the truth that we have been embraced by God the Father. We need envy no one.