Gospel Reflection 20061231
We are not saved from this world by ourselves but in the world for others.We enter the world to transform it rather than to make a speedy and solitary escape, having earned it for ourselves. This communal and sacramental dimension of Catholicism makes it easier to understand why Catholics see the work for justice as essential to following Jesus.----------
A Joy for the Whole Family December 31, 2006Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Luke 2:41-52Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety." And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father´s house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
This translation doesn’t even begin to give us a sense of what Mary and Joseph must have been experiencing. How many of you have ever lost track of one of your children at the mall, or a ball game, or some other public event – even just for a split second? I have, and I panicked. I suspect that the kind of feelings and emotions that I experienced are the same kind of feelings and emotions that Mary and Joseph were feeling during those long three days while they were searching for their son. This was a real, human family.
Look at the story in the Gospel today. We’re given a rather bland description of Mary and Joseph’s reaction when they finally find Jesus after searching for him for three days. Luke says, “When his parents saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? You see your father and I have been searching for you in sorrow.”
The story of Jesus, Mary and Joseph going to Jerusalem is a short yet powerful story of family life with its joys, celebrations, tensions, expectations, and heart aches all rolled up together and covered with a blanket of love. We don’t hear the dialogue between Mary and Joseph when they are searching frantically for Jesus in the caravan. Somehow I have to believe it was peppered with words that we would consider less than tranquil. The gospel writer records Mary’s words to Jesus after finding him “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Anxiety to say the least when parents lose their only child whom happens to be the Messiah. And so Jesus “went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them…and Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.” All the tension, anxiety and uncertainty was completely dispelled by the love that all three had for each other. Jesus was truly marked by God for something special, as Mary and Joseph too had been.
At the heart of all of this lie two virtues which go hand-in-glove and which guarantee the proper functioning of any family. They are the virtues of humility and obedience, which run counter to the arrogance and self-will exalted by so many today. Humility is Christian realism: it recognizes and accepts God as the source of all true good, and it embraces with joyful love the limited and created reality of self. Obedience is Christian pragmatism: what humility recognizes and accepts, obedience puts into practice in love. A virtue is by definition a strength; hence neither humility nor obedience should be construed as weaknesses. We find those strengths in Mary and in Joseph; but we find them also, and to an infinite degree, in Jesus. As God, Jesus is obviously not a limited self; yet it was as God that He showed the greatest “realism” possible by accepting lovingly His Father’s plan for our salvation. As man, Jesus was limited, and yet He showed His divine pragmatism, the extremity of His obedient love, within the confines of being human. Herein lies a great and wonderful mystery before which we can only adore. As God and man, Jesus was obedient, a loving doer of the Father’s will to the most extreme consequences; these included death, but also Resurrection. In their own ways, both Mary and Joseph also lived out fully these two virtues; and by doing so, they enabled the Son of God to save the world.
In our families, we need to rediscover or reinforce humility and obedience. This does not mean subjecting all members of the family to the whims of one or other parent. Parents can only claim obedience and humility from their children if they show them first, by constant, concrete example, what it means for themselves to obey God and to be humble before God. If the search for and the love of God’s truths do not shine forth in a parent’s life, their calls for obedience and humility from their children will be correspondingly sham. The teaching of virtue is only effective if it first proceeds from actions, not words. To act virtuously is, however, sincere only if it is done for love’s sake, not just to impress. If we seek to impress our children rather than teach them through loving example, we will gain only their contempt. Christ left us an example that we should follow in His steps. The Gospel itself would mean nothing if Christ had not actually died and risen for us. That’s why it is tragic self-deception to say we embrace the Gospel and yet, in fact, reject the Cross.
Order, discipline and unity in the home will be more likely if the father and mother themselves love and respect one another as Christ has shown us. If St. Paul asks “wives to be subordinate to their husbands”, he does so only by enjoining on husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church, that is by sacrificing Himself completely for Her. In the Christian dispensation, husbands and wives are not intended to live parallel existences which can easily become defensive and offensive. Rather, mutual complementarity in unity is the rule, a rule which is certainly more costly but which, if observed aright in humility and obedience, bears greater fruits of happiness and holiness. When children see such commitment in their parents, they will feel loved, deeply secure, at peace and happy, and they will spontaneously show obedience and respect to them, to other adults and to legitimate authority in the Church and in society. They are also more likely to remain faithful to Christ and seek Him out as the source of their parents’ happiness.
There is no family without its problems, but that does not mean we should dissolve the family as the basic cell of society and of the Church. It means rather that the task of humility and obedience is always before us so that forgiveness and reconciliation can at least soothe, if not heal, the wounds of our problems. The Holy Family remains active from heaven to help all families in trouble for, like Mary and Joseph, all parents are but stewards of their children, charged with preparing them for the mission God gives them in life. Society may laugh at us, but the best way to respond to it and help it, is by ourselves embracing all the more fully the humility and obedience of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Perhaps then society will see in us the picture of Christian realism and pragmatism and be drawn, as was Jesus, to the Father House.
Christians are really members of two families: the family of their human father and mother, and the family of their heavenly Father, His Son, and their Holy Spirit.
Historically, the Church has given us the Holy Family as a model for Christian living. Yet, this model doesn’t work for some of us because we reason, “Jesus was God, Mary was born without original sin, and Joseph had to be a saint to be able to deal with everything thrown at him. How can we possibility be like them?”
Our celebration today calls us to follow the model of the Holy Family. It calls us to stop focusing on our own interests and feelings and self-fulfillment, and focus on those who God has given to us as a family.
One of the most pressing needs of our times is for families to deliberately and intentionally strive toward being a holy family. Holy families don’t just happen. They are something we consciously create by every person working together and persisting in tough times.
My brothers and sisters, God gave you your family as a gift and a legacy. You are called to love it, cherish it, and to constantly build it up, even if it is imperfect and messy.
Sacred Scripture gives us a message for today’s families. This message is different from the one that society in which we live gives. Scripture shows us the importance of sanctifying the home every day, ignoring the sacrifices and hardships that might come up. If the love of Christ is not in our homes, above all of the things that this world has to offer, we could easily fall into the error of thinking that marriage in which everyone looks out for themselves can survive. Another of the great errors which, unfortunately is popular everywhere today, is the idea that marriage between a woman and a man, lived out in mutual respect, dignity and order, is out of date. Let us be prudent and form a home following the teachings of Our Lord because society every day is more and more hostile to marriage and to the family.
Families can be the most nurturing relationships we ever experience. Unfortunately, some of us may not have those kind of happy memories. The holidays can become times of stress and strife. Things said or unsaid, done or not done may bring hurt, discord, even estrangement between family members. Today the Church holds up for us the example of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as the Holy Family.
Each and every one of us is a member of God’s Holy Family. We are called to live out our lives as God has planned them just as Jesus, Mary and Joseph did. We have a choice to live according to the wishes of our Father or to break from our Holy Family and do our own thing. Just as John says at the end of today’s reading, “the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.” If the Spirit of God is alive and active in our lives, we know that we are united to God’s Holy Family. It is a family marked by the everyday tensions of life, yes, but it must also be permeated with the love of God the Father each of us has received.
We are called to live lives as planned by God and not as we would selfishly want. This is easier said than done in a world of great selfishness, pressure, and uncertainty. That is why Jesus left us his very Body and Blood to nourish us with his strength, his peace, his love. As we come forward to receive Communion let us, like Jesus, be obedient to OUR FATHER so we too can “advance in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”
Recognize that family life is a life filled with holiness if we allow for it to happen. This in itself presents a dilemma. I refer specifically to some who may feel awkward or ill prepared in recognizing the holiness of their family. After all they live with them…they see the imperfections.
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph…in their struggles, fear and anguish recorded in the Gospel…is a model for our own families that the light of God shines in our midst as we confront the same tensions and crisis’ in our lives.
The Holy Family shows us that any Christian home, in order to be happy, within the happiness that one can find on this earth, should be founded in mutual love, giving, prudence and, above all, love of God.
These days can be an ideal time to ask ourselves: how is my home doing? Is there peace in it? Understanding? Love? Do we place God above all? Or do we live as if God did not exist?
posted by Mike Young @ 6:35 AM
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