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.jpg) Dear
Preachers:
I bet the your family’s Christmas didn’t
reflect the traditional idyllic presentation of the Holy Family. There was a
spat between the teenagers; an aunt who’s always patiently instructs others how
to raise their children, though she has none of her own; a brother-in-law who
would rather be watching the game on tv; and a recently divorced daughter and
her two children still shell- shocked from the experience. If Norman Rockwell
had needed models for a magazine cover of a modern holy family he certainly
wouldn’t have knocked on our doors! We ache too much ...argue over silly things
(and some not so silly)...aren’t speaking to one member in particular ...haven’t
forgotten a slight that happened five years ago...think there’s too much salt in
mom’s turkey stuffing... and wish the vegetarian daughter-in-law would have
stayed at home.
We weren’t the holy family on Christmas day. Maybe we didn’t even have a family
to go home to, so we gathered with a few friends and did the best we could to
cook some traditional foods that only vaguely resembled the way “mom used to
make it.” Were we a holy family with our rushed grace and not so holy thoughts?
Yes, we were. Not because we had our religious act together, not because the day
went perfectly, but because God has been born among us, into a human family with
all its complications and ambiguities – the holy mess.
We still gather in families to eat a special meal, celebrate the events of this
season – as best we can. And God is born again in our humanity, setting about to
heal us and to help us come together to reach our true destiny, our everlasting
home with God. All this, as we pass the potatoes, offer a toast to one another’s
health, and tonight and the days to come, wish each other a happy new year.
A sober look at the Gospel for today will help keep us from romantizing today’s
feast and the three people upon whom it focuses. Jesus’ family has come to
Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. Jesus has separated himself from the
company of his parents and family members. There is a note of annoyance or hurt
in Mary’s question to Jesus, “Son, why have you done this to us?” And isn’t it
ironic that Jesus’ first words in this Gospel should sound like reprimand to his
parents, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know...?” What an unusual
statement for someone born into the extremely close knit family culture of this
primitive Mediterranean world, where good family relations were of primary
importance. He had decided to do something without asking his parent’s
permission.
The story tells us that Jesus is twelve years old. This is the age when Jewish
boys prepare for their Bar Mitzvah, when they accept their religious
responsibilities and think about their life journey. He is showing signs of the
independence and the compulsion for God that will characterize his adult life.
But his parents have no way of knowing what form his later call will take. All
they know is that he had separated himself from them. This trip to Jerusalem
prefigures much. Jesus will not follow the usual path into his father’s line of
work. He will not, as would have been expected, stay in his home town among his
own kinsfolk. He is already showing signs of a vision that has begun to form in
his imagination. He is engaged in discussion with the teachers prefiguring his
own teaching role later in his life. He is in the Temple and he himself will
become the sacrifice in the new Temple built by the Spirit.
This moment in Jerusalem prefigures Jesus’ later journey there with his
disciples, his new family. Then he will reveal more about himself. His parents
do not understand now what he is saying to them about the priority of his
relationship to God, which takes precedence even over his relationship to them.
Jesus’ later life will reveal that being in his family had nothing to do with
blood, but with faith in him. Mary is showing the signs of a true believer as
she, “kept all these things in her heart.” When the shepherds came at the birth
of Jesus and told his parents what they had heard from the angels about God’s
graciousness to humanity through the newborn, Mary didn’t understand. Again Luke
tells us, as he does today, she kept these things in her heart. She doesn’t
understand how God’s plan will be worked out in Jesus, so she does what we
disciples must also do, she ponders and waits.
Understanding the consequences of Jesus’ birth into our human family isn’t easy:
wasn’t for those who lived with him then, isn’t for us now. As a family of
faith, we need to ask: what are the consequences of professing that we are the
followers of Jesus Christ? This story in the Temple comes at the end of Luke’s
introductory two chapters. While Mary and Joseph don’t get a completely clear
response from Jesus, they do hang in there, they do stay around to see the
implications for their lives. And so must we, as we profess our faith these days
in the newborn Savior. In subsequent weeks we will hear the stories of the adult
Christ who will invite others to become a part of his family. Flawed though we
be, we will want to hear and ponder his words and actions and determine the
consequences for our own lives. As did his parents, we will stay around as well,
and continue, like Mary, to keep all this in our hearts.
The grace in the story is that Jesus stays in there as well. He doesn’t throw up
his hands and find another set of parents, ones who understand perfectly. He
stays with us too, even when we don’t get it. We will be hearing more stories
from Luke this liturgical year, stories of people who are constantly missing the
point. And Jesus stays with them through it all. These are our stories, the
story of the Church. We just don’t or can’t understand, but the grace is that we
are not abandoned. We have done things in our lives based on what we thought we
should do, and we found we misinterpreted the clues. The Good News is that we
were not abandoned, we did not fail the ultimate test. Our God has stayed with
us and is helping us, even now, learn more about what it means to accept the
implications of the Incarnation in our lives.
When I was younger there was a tendency to use this feast as an occasion to show
what the model family should look like. The preaching was on the “holy Christian
family” resembling the family of the three holy members. No matter how good my
family was, it never quite measured up to the description of the holy family
from the pulpit. But look at the reading about this family. What makes them
holy? The family went each year to worship at the temple for Passover. Their
lives focused on God. But all wasn’t peace and tranquility. Even amid the
pressures that our culture puts on family life, we too struggle to focus on God,
we too struggle to make this pilgrimage each Sunday to the table of the Lord
where God sees our hungers and gives plenty of good food to hold this faith
family together. There will, for sure, be families present at this Eucharist
with their own unique divisions and struggles. We might pray for them when we
offer petitions, and be sure to include children who have run away from home, or
for wherever there have been ruptures in the family fabric.
Click here for a
link to this Sunday’s readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122924.cfm
QUOTABLE:
Throughout the gospels, Jesus confronts a
society rigidly divided by an intricate code that separates the clean and the
unclean, the righteous and the sinner, the insider and the outsider. In
everything he days and does, Jesus turns that society upside down, breaking down
the codes that divide God’s family, restoring the broken and excluded to
wholeness and community, inviting those outside to a place of special honor in
the feast that God has prepared. This accounts for the scandal that constantly
attends Jesus and his fellowship with “prostitutes”, sinners, unclean
people–unclean in both the literal as well as ritual sense of the term. The
“family” that Jesus gathers around him is hardly what we would call an
“exclusive club,” instead, it includes every type of “wrong” person, every type
of person who feels marginalized and excluded by the prevailing standards of
social value. It is these people, in particular, who experience the call to join
Jesus’ family as a genuine blessing.
–Robert
Ellsberg in, THE LIVING PULPIT, July-September, 1999, page 4.
JUSTICE BULLETIN BOARD
“See what love
the Father has bestowed
on us that we may be called the children of God”
1 John 3: 1
Today is the Feast of the Holy Family, the
family par excellence that we are related to by both Word and Spirit. And what
an unruly lot of children we can be! Family life is messy; its members have
different opinions, different likes and dislikes, different strengths and
weaknesses. United together, however, a family is a loving bond to a world that
doesn’t realize how we are all related. A stable family life is also a source of
peace. So, it is fitting that after Christmas, when a little family of two
became three, comes the World Day of Peace on January 1, 2025, to start the new
year.
“Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace” is the theme chosen by Pope
Francis for this World Day of Peace, that also ushers in our Jubilee Year. The
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, in its statement on the
theme, says the chosen theme corresponds to “the biblical and ecclesial
understanding of the Jubilee Year” as “the concepts of hope and forgiveness are
at the heart of the Jubilee, a time for conversion that calls us not to condemn,
but instead to bring about reconciliation and peace.” “Only from a genuine
conversion on all levels – personal, local and international – will true peace
be able to flourish,” states the Dicastery. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every
family throughout the world would seek reconciliation and peace in all spheres
of its influence as a hope-filled resolution for 2025?
Consider, also, some additional resolutions proposed by Evy McDonald in Simpler
Living, Compassionate Life, (Morehouse,1999): “I pledge to discover how much is
enough for me to be truly fulfilled, neither rich nor poor, and to consume only
that. I pledge to be part of the discovery of how much would be enough for
everyone—not only to survive but to thrive—and to find ways for them to have
access to that. Through this commitment to restraint and justice, I am living
the teachings of Jesus, healing my life and am part of the healing of the world
(66).”
Happy New Year, family!
Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS,
Director
Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice
Ministries
Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral,
Raleigh, NC
FAITH BOOK
Mini-reflections on the Sunday
scripture readings designed for persons on the run. “Faith Book” is also
brief enough to be posted in the Sunday parish bulletins people take home.
From today’s Gospel reading:
He went down with
them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them;
and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
Reflection:
We will accompany Mary as she periodically
appears in the gospel of Luke. With her we will look and listen at the unfolding
events and join her as we keep “all these things” in our heart.
So, we ask ourselves:
- Do I have a regular practice of reflecting
on the significance of the day’s events?
- Do I accompany those reflections with
regular meditation on God’s Word in the scriptures?
POSTCARDS TO DEATH ROW INMATES
“One has to strongly affirm that condemnation
to the death penalty is an inhuman measure that humiliates personal dignity, in
whatever form it is carried out."
---Pope Francis
Inmates on death row are the most forgotten
people in the prison system. Each week I am posting in this space several
inmates’ names and locations. I invite you to write a postcard to one or more of
them to let them know that: we have not forgotten them; are praying for them and
their families; or, whatever personal encouragement you might like to give them.
If the inmate responds, you might consider becoming pen pals.
Please write to:
- James E. Thomas #0404386 (On death row
since 2/24/95)
- Tony M. Sidden #0368820 (3/15/95)
- Charles P. Bond #0036850 (3/24/95)
----Central Prison, P.O. 247,
Phoenix, MD 21131
Please note: Central Prison is in
Raleigh, NC., but for security purposes, mail to inmates is processed through a
clearing house at the above address in Maryland.
For more information on the Catholic position
on the death penalty go to the Catholic Mobilizing Network:
http://catholicsmobilizing.org/resources/cacp/
On this page you can sign “The National
Catholic Pledge to End the Death Penalty.” Also, check the interfaith page for
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty: http://www.pfadp.org/
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