Holy Family, Human Family
Tucked in between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the Feast of the Holy Family can easily go unnoticed. One reason is certainly that most of us are still absorbed in holiday celebrations. Another may be that it’s difficult to relate to it. However, it offers all of us an important and profound truth: the Holy Family is human; your family is holy.
Having difficulty finding any resemblance between your family and the Holy Family? We all know that today families come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes besides married mothers and fathers with children. To name just a few, there are single mothers and fathers with children, multigenerational families living together, grandparents raising grandchildren, couples with adopted children, couples with no children, stepparents and stepchildren. Some families are separated by divorce, death, temporary job assignments, college, prison, economic hardship or immigration policies. Still, the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph can be an ideal model of family life in whatever form it takes.
The Church places this feast immediately after Christmas not only to draw attention to Jesus, Mary and Joseph as a family but also to provide all families with a model of encouragement for growing in holiness. Holiness cannot mean the absence of difficulties and tensions and chaos. If that were so, who could possibly be holy?! Rather, holiness is about being willing to grow. It’s about growing in our ability to care for, to forgive, to love, to teach and to admonish one another.
The Holy Family was obviously graced by God. Still it underwent distress and peril. Isn’t this true of all family life? Whatever our family circumstances, each has its share of blessings and each has its “piercing swords,” as Simeon forewarned Mary in the gospel for this Sunday.
Just like every family weathers storms, so did Mary and Joseph
as they were raising Jesus. They were a human family. Can you imagine
the emotional upheaval when Mary found herself pregnant while not yet living
with her espoused? Or the fear and distress that Mary and
Joseph must have felt when their child Jesus was lost in the temple? Or
the ultimate powerlessness and anguish Mary must have felt as she watched her
son be crucified? Those events are described for us in
the scriptures and it’s important for us to remember the feeling dimension of
these experiences. Those were only the extraordinary events. Think about the
everyday events in your family life: changing diapers, preparing meals,
paying bills, disciplining children, drying tears, overseeing baths and
brushing teeth and bedtime and so much more!! Mary and Joseph surely had their share of those things to contend with.
So, holiness didn’t shelter Jesus, Mary and Joseph from the ordinary challenges and stresses of family life, and we know it didn’t shelter them from peril. It was in the midst of their lives that God acted to save them. In similar ways God has acted in the life of each of our families. The Christmas season is about celebrating Emmanuel, a word which means “God is with us.” Opening ourselves to God’s faithful presence and having confidence in God’s care and protection is what leads to holiness. The good news is that our economic, social, political, ethnic or racial status does not determine God’s loving, faithful presence; simply being human does.
Holiness starts with being aware of God, present in every moment. In any experience we can ask ourselves, “Where is God in the midst of this?” Sometimes we discover that God is present to us through other human beings, just as we become God’s presence for others in need. As we grow in our capacity for recognizing God in our moments of delight as well as of struggle, we will notice a deepening of respect and care. Even when we fail in those efforts, that moment can become a reminder of God’s unfailing love for us, and encourage a hope for being more caring in the future.
Yours is a holy family. It isn’t about doing things perfectly as parents or as a family. It is being able to recognize God in your midst, even when life seems most chaotic, and delighting in that presence. Take some time to think about this. Take some time to talk about it. It could provide for a rich family conversation!
Blessed are you O God,
for sending your Son, Jesus,
to become part of a family,
so that, as he lived its life,
he would experience its worries and its joys.
We ask you O God,
to protect and watch over this family,
so that in the strength of your grace
we may embrace the challenges of life,
experience the gift of your peace,
and, as the Church alive in this home,
bear witness to the world that you are a God of love.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.