Deacon Bruce's
Homily for Sunday December 27, 2009
[Holy Family Sunday Cycle C]
Sirach 3:2-6, Col 3:12-21, Luke 2:41-52
Today is Holy Family Sunday – the one Sunday of the year where we look at the family that Jesus grew up in. So who is this Holy Family that we are celebrating today? I guess that most everyone can answer that question. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, or JMJ as some might remember writing on the upper right hand corner of their school papers.
And what was this Holy Family doing in the Gospel? They were fulfilling their duty as faithful parents. Presentation of children was an essential practice to devout Jews. Mary and Joseph were just that, devout, holy, God fearing; brought up to respect their God and follow the time honored traditions of their faith.
The Holy Family shared in the love of Christ for the Church. They had been brought up in their faith which professed a profound love of God for the people of God and God expected them to return that love by loving others. That was especially true within the family. As it says in our second reading:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.
Is this what the Gospel is asking of us; to be devout, faithful followers of Christ? Of course, that is what the Gospel is about. The Church also calls us to this on this Sunday, to review ourselves in light of our response to our faith; to view our family in light of the Holy Family.
But wasn't it a lot easier to be faithful back then? Wasn't it a lot easier to be family back then?
Back then, their culture was deeply steeped around the family. Family grew up and stayed in the same small area. People didn't pull up their roots and transplant themselves hundreds of miles away. They weren't transferred across the continent to another job. They didn't have the constant barrage of materialistic ads and constantly morally degrading influence of most of the media we get today.
There were no iPods that silently infiltrated suggestive stanzas and no movies that tickled the eyes with blatant sexuality. Elders were held in esteem for the wisdom they had gained through the experience of a lifetime, within the family.
The family molded and shaped the children's lives, and family meant extended family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, nephews and nieces. All these people knew each other and knew where they came from. There was no hiding of anything from them.
The family back then in the time of Mary and Joseph kicked in when troubles came, closing the circle of love around the family in need. Children played games that were about life experiences not mystical characters in mystical lands. The history of the family was passed down from generation to generation, from grandparent to grandchild.
You knew where you fit into the family, not worried about what you looked like or how they would view you. And the family was always available to help.
So what have we today?
Families spread across many states that don't know each other, but inwardly want to. Families who don't even know when a member is in trouble, and children who no longer esteem the elders because they are "too old" and "they don't understand " the way life is now.
It is no longer enough to bring your children up to be famous athlete’s (as we see in Tiger Woods), nor is it enough to bring them up to be powerful Lawyers (as we have seen in Eliot Spitzer), nor is it enough to bring them up to be financial wizards (as we saw in Bernie Madoff), but it is important to bring them up as faithful, spiritually strong citizens of God’s kingdom We now more than ever need heroes like John Paul II, Mother Theresa.
So, isn’t it so hard to be a Holy Family that only Jesus, Mary and Joseph could be one? What do we do then, give up? That’s what parent’s seem to do, they give up by trying to run around keeping up with the culture by investing more time taking their kids TO things than in talking with them, by buying more things for them than in investing in their eternal life, by finding more and more "social events" and having no really meaningful relationships. We have had our holy family culture torn from us in less than a century.
We should be looking for support for our family and our faith (what the family used to do) by finding others around us who can share our faith, and building on those relationships. By joining with them and trying to become family again. By trying to bring together again our own families.
We should be spending time talking about our faith and traditions with our children (and children should be asking about those things from their parents). We should be about re-instituting old family traditions or making new ones, by celebrating special AND ordinary events with each other.
How many parents really know their children today. If left alone could you trust your children not to get into trouble? How many parents spend time finding out their children’s wants but more so their needs both physically and spiritually? How many parents share their faith with their children on a regular basis? How many parents actually pray with their children – on a regular basis?
Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Blessed Maria Corsini were a married couple with 4 children who were beatified in 2001. The Beltrame children recall that their parents led a simple life, like that of many married couples, but always characterized by a sense of the supernatural. Cardinal Martins, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said that they "made a true domestic church of their family, which was open to life, to prayer, to the social apostolate, to solidarity with the poor and to friendship".
The catechism states that it is the task of the parents to prepare their children in the faith. How many of us actually take the time to do that. Do you know your faith enough to do that? The catechism states that family members actually carry out the Church’s mission by fostering mutual love in the home, and through that love, by building up the community of the Church and through that society itself. How many of us make that our first priority?
The Catechism says that the family is the domestic church:
“The Christian family forms an environment within which faith is professed and witnessed. When family members pray together, engage in lifelong learning, forgive one another, serve each other, welcome others, affirm and celebrate life, and bring justice and mercy to the community, they help each other live the faith and grow in faith. Some families may not understand themselves as themselves as a domestic church. Perhaps they consider their family too broken to be used for the Lord’s purposes. (But this is the important part to hear) They need to remember that A FAMILY IS HOLY NOT BECAUSE IT IS PERFECT, BUT BECAUSE GOD’S GRACE IS AT WORK IN IT.”
By being a holy family – by being a family steeped in its faith, relying on God’s Grace and by partaking in the sacraments as a family, we can become an example of THE Holy Family. We can become an example to the rest of our extended families, our communities and all of society. And by being an example, we can begin to ensure that our family will survive in its faith, and that the Church (our true home and family) will grow and become more like the Holy Family in every way.
It may sound trite or old-fashioned, but what we need most is to BECOME family again - Holy Family - so that we can allow Jesus to be born anew in us, just as he was in history. Maybe then our lives will flourish within the safety of family, maybe then vocations (vocations to the priesthood and diaconate, vocations to religious life – yes, but even vocations to saintly chaste marriage) will return and flourish, maybe then God will bless us as we present ourselves in His temple, as we attempt to become members of his Holy Family.
Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce
