Feast of the Holy Family

The Feast of the Holy Family

Cycle C

Sir 3: 2-6, 12-14

Col 3:12-17

Lk 2:41-52

We just celebrated the great feast of Christmas where the emphasis is on family. Most of us got together with our families from near and far to celebrate all those special traditions we have surrounding the season. We even celebrated with those family members who we don’t really like very much, and we tried to be on our best behavior so as not to ruin the day for everyone.

The church celebrates the feast of the Holy Family each year on the first Sunday after Christmas to celebrate and honor families. All the pictures we see of the Holy Family seem to be of two beautiful, perfectly groomed and neatly dressed people standing over the angel-faced Christ child. Totally at peace with one another and the world. The perfect family.  Not a care in the world. We put those Christmas cards up on the counter and then turn and look at our own families. And we never live up to the ideal. Mom is struggling with the turkey in the kitchen, Uncle Joe is snoring on the couch in front of the football game, and the kids screaming at each other about who got better presents. And grandma is in the middle of it all, trying to keep the peace. 

Joy to the World.

Typically, a family is defined as consisting of at least three people. Even when a man and woman get married they are still considered a couple, not a family. There needs to be at least three people to form a family. A family mirrors the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit. Have you ever wondered why God is three persons in one? Very simple. God is love, and love is not love unless it is given away to another, and then the other returns it. That’s two. True love must go beyond the two, however, to bear fruit to the world. It cannot remain contained by two people, it must be shared with another. That’s three.

And so, God set up our relationships to mirror His. I just saw the movie, Les Miserables, and one line written by the author, Victor Hugo, sums up the entire movie. “To love another person is to see the face of God.” When we love each other we are acting as God acts, as we were created to be. God created us because his great love could not even be contained within the Holy Trinity. It had to expand into creation. It had to bear fruit. It had to have something to show for it.

And just as God’s love had to bear fruit, a family is also called to bear fruit. The most obvious and visible fruit of a marriage is children, conceived and born out of the love two people have pledged to one another. We do not create our children by ourselves. No matter how hard we try, unless God says so, there will be no children. We are co-creators with God, first with our children, then with what we create in our daily lives. Our thoughts, dreams, and actions are all co-creations with God. Therefore, whenever the love of the family affects the world, and it always does, that is God working with us and through us. St. Augustine said that “we plant the seed, God provides the growth.” The family is the incubator.

First and foremost, the members of a family are to be faithful to one another. It begins with the vows of fidelity a couple says to one another on their wedding day. It then continues as the family grows. It is said that we cannot choose our families, they choose us. We are just stewards of our children and of one another. And we live with one another through all the good times and bad, likes and dislikes of our lives. We’re stuck with one another and so need to stick together. We must support each other no matter what. That is what a family is for. It is how we survive in the world.

And the key to the survival of a family is forgiveness. No family is perfect, and we all need forgiveness. A lot of forgiveness. Whenever people are in such close relationship with one another there is more chance to hurt one another. Therefore, we need to constantly be asking for and receiving forgiveness from one another. It seems that every Christmas season there are stories and movies and TV shows about a family member who has been estranged from the family returns home. The prodigal sons and daughters of Christmas. Since we always equate Christmas with family, it makes sense that we try to reconcile with one another around Christmastime. 

The Feast of the Holy Family is the Feast of the Perfect Family, but for the rest of us, there are no perfect families. And even though the Holy Family was perfect, that didn’t absolve them from hardship. They were so poor that Mary had to give birth in a stable, where the only clean place to lay the baby was in the feeding trough. They lived in a small, insignificant town in a backwater province in a tiny, rebellious country that was overrun by conquering armies. They were surrounded by violence, and even had to leave the country and live abroad to avoid it, just like many families today. Mary was the subject of gossip and shame from the townspeople because they could do the math. No way she could have become pregnant by Joseph. And she had to live with that stigma her entire life. No one would believe a story about angels and a virgin birth. And her husband tried to divorce her when he found out she was pregnant. Only divine intervention prevented him from doing it. 

And into such a family our savior was born. We call it the Holy Family because God was part of it. Everything about the Holy Family revolved around Jesus. The Holy Family was truly God-centered. They ate, drank, lived and breathed in God, and God ate, drank, lived and breathed in them. That is what made them holy. Being holy is being like God, doing what God does, making God the center of your entire existence. And it’s something that we can all attain to. 

We hear today that Jesus went home with his parents, was obedient to them, and grew in wisdom and in strength. Sounds normal to me. The Holy Family was a special family, and through it God came into the world in a very special, personal way. We are all the Holy Family. On the cross, Jesus gave his mother to the Beloved Disciple. The apostle John never names the Beloved Disciple, and I cannot imagine that Jesus would ever have one disciple he loved more than the rest of us. He didn’t play favorites. The Beloved Disciple is a name for us all. We are all Beloved by God. And so when Jesus gave his mother to the Beloved Disciple he was giving her to us all. If Mary is our mother, then we are all part of the Holy Family.

We don’t have to be perfect to be holy. We can choose to be holy. We can choose to live with God as the center of our families. And as the Holy Family, we must be true to one another, forgive one another, and bring the fruit of our love for one another out into the world.