Year C / Christmas Season / Feast of the Holy Family
Readings: 1 Samuel 1:20-22,24-28 / Psalm 83.2-3,5-6, 9-10 (R/v cf 5a) / 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24 / Luke 2:41-52
The Waltons was a television series I’d faithfully watch with my family when I was younger. It revolved around a multi-generational American family at the time of the Great Depression. Each week we’d watch them live as they interacted, quarreled, struggled, forgave and loved. The eldest son, John Boy, was the main character. He would begin each episode by introducing the week’s story and he would end it by reflecting on lessons learnt about family life.
But it was how The Waltons ended each week that captured my attention then and remains etched in my childhood memories to this day. We would see the family house at night, all dark, with light in some rooms. We’d hear each family member say good night: “Good night Mama, Papa”; “Good night, Mary Ellen”; “Good night, John Boy”; “Good night, Grandma and Grandpa”; “Good night, Jim Bob”; “Good night, children”. Then, the lights would extinguish one by one and all would sleep.
Today, we remember another family and their struggles, and we celebrate their life because of God's labor in their lives.
Every year we hear readings and homilies about this Holy Family. Same old same old: same invitation, same challenge, you and I say: “My family can never be like the Holy Family; we’re such an unholy family.”
Honest feelings and understandable thoughts: after all, don’t we all struggle with our varied tensions of being family? Sometimes we feel frustrated, resentful and angry towards our family for one reason or another. At other times, we might feel trapped, manipulated and offended by their words and actions. Our divorced and remarried family members, and those who didn’t succeed might disappoint us. Our imprisoned or homosexual family members might embarrass us. Try as we do to love them as a family, our love may be wanting, if not unchristian at times.
But we all know that we will be lesser without our families. They give us joy, comfort and hope. They save us from sadness, loneliness and despair. In fact, don’t they redeem us from the sin of selfishness and greed by drawing us into the grace of selflessness and generosity? And doesn’t our love for our families—no matter how much we give—always bless us into life? I believe “yes” is our answer to these questions.
And “yes” is possibly how each family member in The Waltons came to terms with living in their family. Their family bonds and responsibilities kept them faithful to each other. They also saved them. They saved each other from self-centeredness by teaching them generosity. You can say that this family’s interactions schooled them into holiness: they taught each other to be more giving, more trusting, more thankful, more disposed towards life, even as they struggled with the daily realities of being family.
Don’t our families do the same for you and me? Don’t they school us to become Christian in our attitudes and behaviors, in our words and deeds towards one another? Aren’t our family disagreements and discomforts really teachable moments for us to become more loving, more forgiving, more accepting, more caring, more family?
Perhaps, the most important school we need to attend and pay attention to is our family life. Here, we will learn to grow up more Christian and become holier.
No phrase supports “Holy does not mean perfect” better than “Holy Family”. If holiness has much to do with trusting God’s dreams and graces for us, then, the Holy Family exemplifies this. They lived this holiness by responding faithfully to God’s plan for them. Christian families should respond to God’s dreams and graces that can convert us to holiness.
Learning to grow in holiness then is why we must cherish the Holy Family. They show us how to strive as a family to find God’s grace and to grow in God’s ways.
From the angel announcing Mary’ pregnancy to Joseph following the angel’s instruction to remain as Mary’s husband, this couple lived amidst life’s tensions to follow God faithfully. However the Jewish laws threatened their union or puzzled kinsfolk questioned their unnatural situation, Mary and Joseph turned towards each other, then towards the crib, then towards Egypt and finally towards Nazareth, but always with God in their lives. From finding Jesus in the temple to standing with Jesus at the foot of the cross, from fleeing into Egypt to leaving home to begin Jesus’ ministry, this family learnt to let go of their wants and to let God lead them through life’s uncertainties.
For us, these tensions are obstacles to overcome and resolve. For the Holy Family, these are where God’s dreams enter into human life; they are the very spaces where God’s graces can grow in us and perfect us in holiness.
The Holy Family shows us how to do this: by seeking God; by trusting God; by letting God lead. In short, the Holy Family practiced obedience.
We hear about their obedience in today’s gospel story: Mary and Joseph obeyed the Law of Moses that Mary purify herself after childbirth, that they present their first born to God, and that they thank God with sacrificial offerings. And Jesus’ obedience growing up found favor with God. Obedience is in fact writ large in the stories about the Holy Family. Joseph obeyed the angel despite his fears. Mary obeyed God to bear Jesus. Both obeyed each other as husband and wife. Their mutual obedience to God and one another taught Jesus how to obey His Father in heaven and his parents on earth.
It is their obedience to God and one another that enables Jesus, Mary and Joseph to grow in holiness as a family. We would be wise to make obedience our family way: for it will be obedience that will open our hearts to God’s mystery of salvation in our lives.
Indeed the story of Mary and Joseph looking for Jesus today is a meditation on opening our hearts to God. It very well describes our own Christian living. We look for Jesus when we, like him, seek to be in God’s presence; when we, like him, choose to be obedient; when we, like him, grow in wisdom. Along the way we discover that Jesus enlarges where we look for him, how we find him, and what new understanding comes to us through our encounters with him.
This is the pattern of faithful Christian living for fullness of life. We find this pattern first in our family; we then share it with the family of God that we are. And we live this obedience best by interacting with every family member at home, in church and in society in Christian ways.
This is why we must resist how society devalues the family as an economic shelter, a baby-making machine, a curb to individualism. We must instead pray to love our families with God’s eyes: as the source of our holiness in God and the graced place to grow in it.
Christmas helps us to do this. We remember how Jesus brought holiness to Joseph and Mary by making them family. We celebrate how Jesus brings us into holiness by embracing us into His family. And though Christmas Day is over, the birthing of Jesus in our lives should not be. His entry into our lives should make us make more room for him in our lives first, and for him, to make even more room for our family. This is how we can let Jesus work with our family to convert us into holiness, as we can do the same for them.
Growing into holiness is indeed the Christian promise of God meeting and perfecting us in the tensions of family life. Shouldn’t we then learn to value our families even more?
May be when we value our families as they are in the same way God loves us mercifully as we are, we might be able to really wish each other in our families, “Good night, Mom”, “God night, Dad”, “Good night, daughter”, “Good night, Grandpa and Grandma,” “Good night, son”, “Good night, everyone”. Then, we'll definitely find ourselves living as family that is always grateful, always at peace.
Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
Photo: www.insp.com
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