Homily for the Week of December 28, 2008

Holy Family, 2008

Today's feast offers much-needed support to marriage and the family, Even its title, at first hearing, seems less than helpful. A "holy" family can sound like an unreal family, a family that travels through life trouble-free. One which consists of the Son of God and two great saints hardly seems to be the kind we could hope to identify with, let alone imitate. Mary and Joseph probably didn’t have baby sitters while they went out shopping or played bingo, or child care workers when the neighbors complain that their child seemed different.

Today we hear that Jesus lived in a family with trouble and real fears. We have all sorts of understanding when we use or hear the word family. Those are those whose understanding is limited to what has been called the traditional family. The traditional family is becoming less and less traditional. Single-parent families, foster families, and blended families make up a large percentage of the families in today’s society and in the Catholic Church.

Of course Jesus, Mary and Joseph are a unique family. Nonetheless, as today's gospel makes clear, they are a real family, as real as any family in the church today; they lived real lives, just like the people around them. They were Jews, humbly following the normal Jewish religious customs. So they complied with the ancient Jewish law. The law said that every first-born baby son should be presented in the temple as a thanksgiving for the wonderful gift of new life and then "bought back" from the Lord on payment of a few shekels. If you were poor an offering of a couple of birds was made. The offering of the poor was all that Mary and Joseph could afford.
A difficult with many families is a fast paced life that is with you almost 24 hours a day. Students from Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburgh, Maryland recently were asked to do a study of what a fast paced life does on spirituality and on a person in general. Seminary students were walking to give a presentation on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Half of the students were told they were running late and must hurry. All the students, whether "late" or not. met someone who was clearly in need of medical help. (In fact, these had been placed there for the sake of the research.) With nobody nearby, what will the seminary students do? Remember they were going to give a talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Most of those who thought they were on time stopped to help. But an alarming 90% of the seminarians who thought they were running late failed to stop!

Time pressure was the only difference. Researchers have since found that people who live in families with the fastest pace of life are also the least helpful. They are less likely to help a blind person cross the street.

Most young families live a fast paced life. Technology has only made our time more stressful. Cell phones, Blackberries, computers, and unread emails clamor for our attention. We eat more fast food and spend more hours in traffic than previous generations. Heart disease, stroke, and stress-related illnesses abound. Chronic stress reduces our overall health and sense of wellness, makes us susceptible to disease, increases the likelihood of substance abuse, increases risk of heart attack, and creates a host of other bad effects, both psychological and physical.

We think multi-tasking might be the answer, so we try squeezing our calls in while stuck in traffic. Worse, we may be tempted to cut out the spiritual life or charitable works in favor of our personal to-do list.

The Holy Family, has much to teach us about fast paced lives. Their life was equally busy. They may have not had to worry about the pager going off at the wrong time, but they did have to make and do everything by hand. Grain was bought and had to be ground into flour. Flour had to be made into bread. each day. Water for cooking and drinking had to be drawn from the river or lake. Forget the microwave. The Holy Family had to cook every meal over an open fire, what we call a barbecue. We can be over-romanticizing when we picture Joseph teaching Jesus how to be a carpenter, or Mary teaching Jesus how to pray. Certainly, there was love, loyalty, and respect in the Holy Family at Nazareth, but it was a real family,
What made this family holy? We cannot give Jesus all the credit for this. The holiness of this family came from dad and mom’s response to God. Joseph and Mary made their faith, their religion, and their religious practices their highest priority. Luke points out today no less than five times that Joseph and Mary did everything as required by the law of Moses. Luke takes great pain to point out that Jesus came from a family that valued its faith, and thus by imp[implication, it valued itself and its relationship with God.

Jesus was not just a product of nature. His parents create a spiritual environment for him in their home. Must there not have been times when they watched him and wondered? It was only their strong faith that enabled them to hold on to the incredible truth that Jesus was not simply another boy from Nazareth, but the unique, long-awaited Messiah. As we look at our children, we might ask what kind of environment are we giving them. Children do learn what they live. Jesus did, so do ours. Jesus was fully human. He had to learn how to crawl, to walk and to talk. He had to learn who God was and how to pray. He had to learn the Bible and learn to love.
Jesus promised to be where two or three are gathered in his name. We learn the meaning of faith through the meaning of faithfulness we experience in family. We all learn the meaning of forgiveness from our experience of being forgiven with the family. We all learning the meaning of Thank You when we hear others say Thank You within the family. These are done in the ordinary moments of daily family life: at mealtimes, workdays, vacations, expressions of love and intimacy, household chores, caring for a sick child or elderly parent, or the death of a child. and even at times of conflicts over things like how to celebrate holidays, discipline children or spend money.

This does not mean, however, that family life is always easy. It takes courage for one parent raising the children--to create a home, to care for children, to hold down a job, to undertake church and community responsibilities. Or for moms and dads who cannot find work. And those who try to blend two sets of children into one family face special challenges. Families arising from an inter religious marriage give witness to God's love which overcomes all division.

As we reflect upon families today I suggest that you gather your family together for a special time of prayer for the family. There was an old saying that the family who prays together stays together. During this holiday season, pray for a family member who needs your forgiveness and ask Jesus what you might do to bring about reconciliation. Then do it. And if you are not in the habit of praying together, then maybe today is the time to start.