The Holy Family
Feast of the Holy Family
Just last week, a lady walked into the Oakville post office. She wanted to buy 100 stamps for her Christmas cards. The man behind the counter asked her, "What denomination?"
She thought for a minute and said, "I know you guys print a lot of different stamps nowadays, but that's a new one. OK, give me 50 Catholic, 10 Baptist, 20 Lutheran, and 20 Presbyterian."
I realized the other day that I hadn't started a homily with a joke in a while so I went out and bought "The Book of Catholic Jokes--Confirmed Funny". It would figure that it would be written by a deacon, Deacon Tom Sheridan. So I'm all set, at least for a while.
Of course, the lady in the post office has very little to do with the feast we celebrate today, the Feast of the Holy Family. Except maybe that families buy stamps. But that's kind of a stretch, even for me.
[pause]
This particular feast gives us several choices. There are two possible first readings and two possible second readings. There is only one Gospel. All five readings have to do with families. Two of the readings focus on Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac. Their story has a a lot of similarities to the story of the Holy Family, with a heavenly visitor, an unlikely pregnancy, and with the Lord's asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son.
The other two readings, one from the Old Testament and one from the New are instructions to families on how to live a proper life. The Old Testament reading from the book of Sirach speaks of the honor due to a father and the authority that God confirms for mothers over their sons. In the New Testament reading Paul advises the Collosians in terms of the larger family, the human family. He writes of bearing with and forgiving one another, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. He finishes with instructions that deal with the nuclear family, including the not-so-politically-correct instruction that wives be subordinate to their husbands and that husbands love their wives. He also warns children that they must obey their parents because it's pleasing to God. To be fair, he also warns fathers not to provoke their children.
Even though our families are very important to us today, in Biblical times the family was everything. Where today society seems to be doing everything it can to break up and diminish families, in those days everything revolved around the family. Jesus working in Joseph's carpenter shop was a foregone conclusion. Sons and daughters didn't go away to school. They didn't take jobs in distant cities. They stayed close to their families. Friends and neighbors may have socialized, especially around the temple, but when push came to shove, the family was it.
So it made perfect sense that when God decided to send His only Son to redeem his wayward human creatures, that He must be part of a human family. He had to be totally God and totally man, which meant he had to be born of a woman and experience every human situation. On Christmas we celebrated His birth. Today we celebrate His membership in His human family.
Luke's telling of the story of the family in the temple is one of the most beautiful stories in all the Gospels. Mary and Joseph are following Jewish custom and taking Jesus to the temple to be consecrated, just like any good Jewish family would do. When they arrive they meet Simian. Simeon's been told by God that he wouldn't die until he saw the savior. As soon as he saw the Child he knew that the prophesy had been fulfilled. This was the baby he'd been waiting his whole life to see! This tiny baby was the one who would save us all! Simeon's faith and patience had been rewarded and now he was ready to die. What a powerful and dramatic moment!
He also warned Mary that her own heart would be pierced. Remember that not even a year ago Mary had told the Angel Gabriel, "let it be done to me according to your word." As shocking as the revelation that she was going to give birth to the Son of God must have been, this was something new for her to accept. But she and Joseph were in it for the long haul. They would experience a lot of things that they hadn't necessarily thought about when they each agreed to accept the Father's will.
Then they met Anna, another faithful Jew, one who never left the temple. She spent all of her days and nights in prayer and fasting. She also recognized who this infant really was. While Simeon was ready to die in peace, Luke tells us that Anna gave thanks and spread the news of the baby Jesus "to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem."
But what did Mary and Joseph do? They returned to Nazareth, to raise Jesus as a typical Jewish boy in a typical Jewish village. He would prepare for His destiny by studying and learning, by playing with other kids, and by helping his earthly dad in the carpenter shop. In other words, He would grow up just like everyone else.
We don't know anything about Jesus' childhood, and I think that's a good thing. We're left to imagine what it must have been like to grow up as the Son of God. Did Jesus play sports? If He played soccer, did He ever commit a foul? Did He break things? Did Mary or Joseph ever have to yell at Him? Was he ever spanked? What was it like for Joseph living with a wife and child who never sinned? I think God chose not to tell us these things because every family is different and it's up to us to work out the day-to-day stuff.
As we look at the Nativity scene, at this little human family, we should be reminded of our own place in God's plan. Most of us will never be asked to do anything extraordinary. Our sacred duty is to lead others to Christ, especially within our own families. We do that by living good lives, by attending mass, and by doing all the other ordinary things that every family does. We do it by contributing to the Church and other charities. We do it by bringing food to Church to help those in need and by donating money and stuff to St. Vincent de Paul and other organizations.
Some of us may do great things like going on missionary trips to third world countries, or working with the poor in our inner cities. Over the centuries thousands of Christian martyrs have emulated Christ by dying for the faith. Millions of us have signed up to serve our country in the military and many thousand of them have been laid to rest right behind our church at Jefferson Barracks. But most of us do our thing by just being the best mothers and fathers, or the best aunts and uncles, or the best kids we can be. That's what Mary and Joseph did and that's what we celebrate today. We celebrate their "familiness", their closeness as mother and father and Son. But we also celebrate our own families and every other so-called ordinary family.
We celebrate husbands and wives who work through their differences and honor their promise to God and one another to stay together until death do they part. We honor the families who honor God's will by being open to His gift of children, another thing they promised each other and God in their marriage vows. We honor families who teach their children the faith by word and by example. We recall Mary and Joseph's sacrifices and thank God for their example to the rest of us.
Jesus could have shown up as the Jewish people thought He would, riding into town dressed as a king would dress, on a golden chariot pulled by magnificant white horses, escorted by angels with trumpets blaring. But that would be a human plan. God's plan was different. God's plan included you and me and He chose the Holy Family to show us what we're supposed to do.
It turns out that it was a pretty good plan.
Just last week, a lady walked into the Oakville post office. She wanted to buy 100 stamps for her Christmas cards. The man behind the counter asked her, "What denomination?"
She thought for a minute and said, "I know you guys print a lot of different stamps nowadays, but that's a new one. OK, give me 50 Catholic, 10 Baptist, 20 Lutheran, and 20 Presbyterian."
I realized the other day that I hadn't started a homily with a joke in a while so I went out and bought "The Book of Catholic Jokes--Confirmed Funny". It would figure that it would be written by a deacon, Deacon Tom Sheridan. So I'm all set, at least for a while.
Of course, the lady in the post office has very little to do with the feast we celebrate today, the Feast of the Holy Family. Except maybe that families buy stamps. But that's kind of a stretch, even for me.
[pause]
This particular feast gives us several choices. There are two possible first readings and two possible second readings. There is only one Gospel. All five readings have to do with families. Two of the readings focus on Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac. Their story has a a lot of similarities to the story of the Holy Family, with a heavenly visitor, an unlikely pregnancy, and with the Lord's asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son.
The other two readings, one from the Old Testament and one from the New are instructions to families on how to live a proper life. The Old Testament reading from the book of Sirach speaks of the honor due to a father and the authority that God confirms for mothers over their sons. In the New Testament reading Paul advises the Collosians in terms of the larger family, the human family. He writes of bearing with and forgiving one another, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. He finishes with instructions that deal with the nuclear family, including the not-so-politically-correct instruction that wives be subordinate to their husbands and that husbands love their wives. He also warns children that they must obey their parents because it's pleasing to God. To be fair, he also warns fathers not to provoke their children.
Even though our families are very important to us today, in Biblical times the family was everything. Where today society seems to be doing everything it can to break up and diminish families, in those days everything revolved around the family. Jesus working in Joseph's carpenter shop was a foregone conclusion. Sons and daughters didn't go away to school. They didn't take jobs in distant cities. They stayed close to their families. Friends and neighbors may have socialized, especially around the temple, but when push came to shove, the family was it.
So it made perfect sense that when God decided to send His only Son to redeem his wayward human creatures, that He must be part of a human family. He had to be totally God and totally man, which meant he had to be born of a woman and experience every human situation. On Christmas we celebrated His birth. Today we celebrate His membership in His human family.
Luke's telling of the story of the family in the temple is one of the most beautiful stories in all the Gospels. Mary and Joseph are following Jewish custom and taking Jesus to the temple to be consecrated, just like any good Jewish family would do. When they arrive they meet Simian. Simeon's been told by God that he wouldn't die until he saw the savior. As soon as he saw the Child he knew that the prophesy had been fulfilled. This was the baby he'd been waiting his whole life to see! This tiny baby was the one who would save us all! Simeon's faith and patience had been rewarded and now he was ready to die. What a powerful and dramatic moment!
He also warned Mary that her own heart would be pierced. Remember that not even a year ago Mary had told the Angel Gabriel, "let it be done to me according to your word." As shocking as the revelation that she was going to give birth to the Son of God must have been, this was something new for her to accept. But she and Joseph were in it for the long haul. They would experience a lot of things that they hadn't necessarily thought about when they each agreed to accept the Father's will.
Then they met Anna, another faithful Jew, one who never left the temple. She spent all of her days and nights in prayer and fasting. She also recognized who this infant really was. While Simeon was ready to die in peace, Luke tells us that Anna gave thanks and spread the news of the baby Jesus "to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem."
But what did Mary and Joseph do? They returned to Nazareth, to raise Jesus as a typical Jewish boy in a typical Jewish village. He would prepare for His destiny by studying and learning, by playing with other kids, and by helping his earthly dad in the carpenter shop. In other words, He would grow up just like everyone else.
We don't know anything about Jesus' childhood, and I think that's a good thing. We're left to imagine what it must have been like to grow up as the Son of God. Did Jesus play sports? If He played soccer, did He ever commit a foul? Did He break things? Did Mary or Joseph ever have to yell at Him? Was he ever spanked? What was it like for Joseph living with a wife and child who never sinned? I think God chose not to tell us these things because every family is different and it's up to us to work out the day-to-day stuff.
As we look at the Nativity scene, at this little human family, we should be reminded of our own place in God's plan. Most of us will never be asked to do anything extraordinary. Our sacred duty is to lead others to Christ, especially within our own families. We do that by living good lives, by attending mass, and by doing all the other ordinary things that every family does. We do it by contributing to the Church and other charities. We do it by bringing food to Church to help those in need and by donating money and stuff to St. Vincent de Paul and other organizations.
Some of us may do great things like going on missionary trips to third world countries, or working with the poor in our inner cities. Over the centuries thousands of Christian martyrs have emulated Christ by dying for the faith. Millions of us have signed up to serve our country in the military and many thousand of them have been laid to rest right behind our church at Jefferson Barracks. But most of us do our thing by just being the best mothers and fathers, or the best aunts and uncles, or the best kids we can be. That's what Mary and Joseph did and that's what we celebrate today. We celebrate their "familiness", their closeness as mother and father and Son. But we also celebrate our own families and every other so-called ordinary family.
We celebrate husbands and wives who work through their differences and honor their promise to God and one another to stay together until death do they part. We honor the families who honor God's will by being open to His gift of children, another thing they promised each other and God in their marriage vows. We honor families who teach their children the faith by word and by example. We recall Mary and Joseph's sacrifices and thank God for their example to the rest of us.
Jesus could have shown up as the Jewish people thought He would, riding into town dressed as a king would dress, on a golden chariot pulled by magnificant white horses, escorted by angels with trumpets blaring. But that would be a human plan. God's plan was different. God's plan included you and me and He chose the Holy Family to show us what we're supposed to do.
It turns out that it was a pretty good plan.
posted by Mike at 10:55 AM
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