1. -- Lanie
LeBlanc OP
2. --
Carol & Dennis Keller
3. --
Brian Gleeson CP
4. --
5. --(Your
reflection can be here!)
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1.
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Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph 2020
Although we all belong to the family of God, few families
of our present times can truly say they mirror the Holy
Family, at least not with consistency. For a starter, some
are estranged, some are in far off places, and some are in
close quarters together for too long in this horrible
pandemic. When we do remember that we should mirror the Holy
Family, we can... for short periods of time, at least
through a zoom. As the popular commercialized Christmas gift
reveals, between then naughty and the nice is a check mark
for "I tried".
In the shortest version of today's Gospel, we read and
are told that after the presentation in the temple, Mary and
Joseph returned to Nazareth with Jesus and "The child grew
and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God
was upon him." Nothing is said about the trials that this
young family endured. Nothing is said about the ups and
downs of daily living that fostered this holiness. Remember,
Jesus was 100% truly God and 100% truly human, even as a
teenager!
Do we, all of us who struggle to mirror this Holy Family
in our homes, communities, workplaces and parishes, with or
with out youngsters in our midst, just give up? We can not!
We must remember that "nothing is impossible for God". In
addition, through the abundant blessings and graces we all
receive, we must embrace the words in our second reading
from Colossians, "Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do
everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to
God the Father through him. "
The Holy Family centered their lives on doing the will of
God and gave thanks to God, trusting in grace in all
circumstances. That is what we must do, remembering the Gift
of Jesus this holy season. That is the way to mirror the
Holy Family and become more of who we are, members of the
Holy Family of God.
Blessings,
Dr. Lanie
LeBlanc OP
Southern
Dominican Laity
lanie@leblanc.one
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Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph December 28 2020
Sirach 3:2-6 &12-14; Responsorial Psalm128; Colossians
3:12-21: Gospel Acclamation Colossians 3:15-16; Luke 2:22-40
[ alternate reading offered; Abraham covenant theme –
Genesis 15:1-6 & 21:1-3; Responsorial Psalm 125; Colossians
3:12-17(a shorter reading of the first option of Colossians
3:12-21) or Hebrews 11:8, 11-12, 17-19; Gospel Acclamation
Hebrews 1:1-2; Luke 2:22, 39-40 (just a shortened gospel
from the first listing of the gospel above)]
There are some celebrations of feast days that have
several themes available to them. Those several themes do
not have a good fit for other Sundays or feast days, so
those selections are offered as an alternate selection at
the discretion of the presider. This feast day of the Holy
Family is one of those feasts. The second set of readings
focuses on Abram chosen by God to become Abraham – that is
the father of a great people. As is the case with many
Hebrew words, the word "great" can mean at least two things.
It can easily mean a people that are view as great,
noteworthy, accomplished, respected. Or it can also mean a
large number, a huge multitude. In the narrative, God tells
Abram to go outside his tent and count the stars in the
heavens. Clearly this is an impossibility because there are
so many. This story of Abram’ calling and assent to God’s
call tells the story of the beginning of the chosen people,
the people who would be the first called to begin the story,
the narrative of God’s salvation. As usual in the Hebrew
Scriptures, God choses an impossible person in an impossible
situation to reveal his plan and work. Abram and wife Sarah
were without child. They lost all hope of children because
of their age. How was it possible that Abram would become
Abraham and be the patriarch of a huge multitude? Abram was
successful in a worldly sense with great wealth, possession,
and prestige in his native land. God promised to make of him
and Sarah a great people as numerous as all the stars of
heaven. For Sarah who was well beyond child-bearing age,
would become a mother for the first time. The Hebrew
people’s saga would begin. The reading from Genesis tells us
that amazing story. The reading from the letter to the
Hebrews explains it in the light of the birth, life,
ministry, and death/resurrection of the Christ child.
Abram left his home country to go where God would show
him. He became Abraham. There are three major faith
traditions that spring from Abraham and Sarah. Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. Isn’t it just the way things are:
it seems that siblings – persons and in this case nations –
of the same family just cannot seem to get along and
appreciate each other!? Is this not a significant thought on
this feast day about our own families? Jealousies, envies,
old unforgotten and unforgiven slights get in the way of the
harmony that is more God like. How quickly we step up to a
judgement seat when thinking, working with, communicating
with our families! How easily we move to judgement based on
our own successes and overlook the person of our brothers
and sisters! The divisiveness and name calling in much of
public life tears at the very fabric of the human family.
Violence, hatred, theft, racism, and murder is the result.
How terrifically awful and unworthy of children of God! What
great insights and growth in the Kingdom of Heaven there
would be if all listened and believed in one another: if all
would strive to recognize the image and likeness of God
resident in the other. How wonder it would come to be if we
imitated the Father in his unconditional love for his
creation and would cooperate in the Father’s expansive love
and compassion!
But contention there is, even in this family of Abraham
and Sarah. Isaac’ son’s rivalry that competition between
Jacob and Esau begins the conflicts. There was jealousy
among the brothers, the sons of Jacob. They sold their
brother Joseph into slavery in Egypt to get rid of him. From
it all, God makes the journey to salvation possible,
interfering, cajoling, allowing misfortune, and always
raising up from the people the most unlikely of leaders.
It is God’s covenant with the Hebrews that he would be
their God and that he would look upon them as his people.
That is the story that comes to us from the letter to the
Hebrews.
In our current situation, family has become the mooring
refuge in the midst of crushing economic and social
pressures arising from a global pandemic and from political
competition among nations and here in our nation. Family has
become the refuge against those storms. And yet, the
economic, social, and political divisions that have been
thrust upon us has torn asunder the fabric of human life.
Even as we grieve over the death of family and friends,
dying alone without comfort of family and church and nation,
there remains rivalries and contentions. In a time when we
must respect the space and health of others, there are many
who insist on personal freedoms which result in growing
chaos of an uncontrolled disease.
We are first of all family in our homes. Currently even
the very notion of "home" is threatened. Tens of thousands
of persons are threatened with the likelihood of
homelessness. Millions of children are deprived of the
social and educational development of schooling. Food and
medicine become too expensive even though gouging by
speculators does not seem to have influenced prices.
While all this chaos continues, we see a tremendous
growth in goodness. Thousands have donated from their
resources. Millions quietly work in volunteer programs
without notice, compensation, or thanks. The worst of times
seems to bring out in some the best of character.
It is family that keeps us from dissolving into
nothingness. It is family that forms the faith and hope for
a better tomorrow. It is family that struggles, that pulls
together to overcome. It is in family that God finds a way
to bring us through this time.
In the story of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph this Sunday, we
see examples of faith that transcends the troubles of the
present time. The story indicates, in the sacrifice chosen,
the poverty of this family. They were in a working class
without lots of resources. In a sense many of our families
have a history that includes such circumstances. The stories
of immigrants and survivors of the great depression, of the
Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, of two world wars are part
of our history and provide a sense of achievement and
survival against great odds. It is the family that inspires,
that elicits great sacrifices in ourselves, in our
ancestors, and in our children. In that sense of sacrifice,
we become like Jesus, saviors to others.
In the past several weeks, we have written about Mary
being pregnant with Jesus. In a sense each of us is also
pregnant with the Lord as we go about our daily activities.
It is Jesus who promised he would always be with us: that he
would not leave us as orphans: that he would send an
advocate to support and assist us.
On this feast day of the Family, we have the opportunity
to understand how we can offer support and loving kindness
to one another. We should seek to resolve our antipathies,
our jealousies, our envies, the slights we have given or
received. If we are to celebrate on this the third day of
Christmas the wonder and necessity of family, we will need
to listen to each other, respect each other, forgive each
other, and discover in the other the wonder they were born
into and into which they have become.
We are more like "All in the Family" than we are "Father
Knows Best." It takes work, effort, and a deep care and love
for each other. This might seem tough. But then consider
this: through God’s work, we have become members of the
family of God. If God can care that much about each of us,
we should find it within ourselves to work at creating
family. That is how we bring the Christ into the real world.
We are the hands and feet of the Lord. May it be so.
Carol &
Dennis Keller
dkeller002@nc.rr.com
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CELEBRATING
THE HOLY FAMILY OF NAZARETH
In the week before Christmas a little boy who lives near
a church had a part in his school’s Nativity play. It wasn't
a big part - in fact it was just one line: ‘Let the crooked
be made straight.’ But it seems that he put more work into
his one line then any actor before or since. At the
performance itself he stood up, and with a big smile on his
face delivered his line perfectly. At the end, at the back
of the church-hall, his pastor asked him how he had found
it. He answered proudly: ‘I did my part good.’
That, I think, is what Simeon and Anna are saying to us
in today's gospel. They have only small parts to play in the
story of salvation. But they played them well, as well as
they possibly could. So, Simeon can say: ‘Now Master, you
can let your servant go in peace … because my eyes have seen
the salvation which you have prepared for all the nations to
see …’
Simeon, then, is thanking God for this special favour: At
the very end of his life, God is letting him meet Jesus -
the Messiah, the Saviour, and the King of the world. Anna
too, another elderly person, is sharing this privilege of
meeting the Saviour of the world in the person of the
Christ-child. For this special grace she too begins to
praise God. Moreover, she speaks to anyone who shows any
interest, of the greatness, goodness and destiny of this
baby.
For both Simeon and Anna, their experience of meeting the
Christ-child is one of relief and peace, light and life,
hope and joy. In short, it’s an experience of being saved
through the arrival of Jesus on the scene.
For us who have come together today to celebrate the
feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the feast is a
reminder of all that Jesus Christ has meant to us, and all
that he continues to mean to us. We came into his presence
and company on the day we were led into the House of God to
be baptised. We have met him many times since. For example,
in the guidance and protection, the goodness and kindness,
the love and support, of our parents! In the friendship and
support of many other family members and of many other
significant people in our lives! We have also met him in
other sacraments we have celebrated, and especially in those
of Reconciliation, Eucharist, and Marriage.
It is precisely because of the length3, breadth and depth
of our relationship with Christ, that we can praise God in
our Eucharist today with words taken from the Christmas
Preface: 'we recognise in him God made visible’ or as a
child recently put it so well, ‘in Jesus we meet God with
skin on’.
Our family is yet another place where we may experience
the kind of faithful love that kept the family of Jesus
together as a community of love ‘in good times and in bad,
in sickness and in health’ as the Marriage Vows put it.
Because the Holy Family knew sorrow, trouble and pain, it
can encourage your family and mine. They did not live a
sheltered and trouble-free life, as we see from every
glimpse we get of them in the gospel stories. Our families
too experience tension, misunderstandings, problems and
challenges, and even sometimes perhaps an exchange of cross
words. Like your family and mine, the Holy Family had to
struggle and make sacrifices. But struggles and sacrifices
form bonds between family members who often draw closer to
one another when the going gets tough.
In our twenty-first century, the meaning of ‘family’ has
changed. We have become aware, and have come to respect,
those who belong to separated, divorced, blended, or
single-parent families. Whatever form our family takes, some
of us are finding life together in our family more
challenging than ever. All sorts of craziness, compulsions,
and conflicts, are putting relationships under strain, and
are sometimes threatening to break up the family. So, there
is a greater need than ever among family members, for those
qualities that are stressed in our Second Reading today –
love, patience, compassion, and forgiveness. We also need to
keep asking God in prayer to keep our families intact. We
might pray, e.g., in the words of our Prayer after Holy
Communion today: 'Eternal Father, we want to live as Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph, in peace with you and one another. May
this communion (with you and one another) strengthen us to
face the troubles of life. AMEN.’
"Brian
Gleeson CP" <bgleesoncp@gmail.com>
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