Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. This feast brings to us the connection between the Holy Family and our own families. The main purpose of the feast is to present the Holy Family as the model for all Christian families and for family life in general.
St. John Chrysostom urged all Christians to make each home a “Family Church” and in doing so, we sanctify the Family unit. In other words, our lives are sanctified when we live the life of the Church within our homes. This is known as the domestic Church.
So, how do we live out the life of the Church in the family: the best way is by making Christ and his Church the center of family and individual life. Ways to do this: attend Mass at the least on Sundays and Holy days of Obligation, doing things together as a family unit that promotes love, joy, respect, happiness, by imitating the actions and lives of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph by putting God first.
There are drastic actions that can destroy the family unit: abortion, contraception, same-sex marriages, embryonic stem cell research, divorce, spousal abuse, child abuse, infidelity.
However, there are actions that tear the family apart slowly and are somewhat hidden in today’s hustle and bustle of everyday living. Today, most families never or rarely sit down together and communicate. Why? Kids watch their favorite shows on their bedroom televisions and the parents are in their room doing the same.
We sometimes find the family unit together for supper, however, it is in front of a blaring television in the living room. I can’t help but wonder if my generation had something to do with that. I remember every household I visited had a set of TV trays prominently displayed in the living room, even in my own home. The motto was eat while you watch, not talk as you eat.
Both parents started working and the children were either left with a baby sitter or one child was old enough to take care of their siblings. Still, the nurturing and guidance of the parents became more scarce.
Since, in today’s family, meals are eaten on the run, most families never sit down together and talk. If we do not converse with one another, how are we expected to understand, know, or communicate with each other? Eventually, the family becomes fractured, to the point that it begins to crumble.
This does not take into consideration the negative content of much of today’s entertainment. Have you ever noticed how movies are marketed: Children’s films are marketed on Nichelodeon, tweener (that is pre-teen) films on Disney, teen films on MTV, young males on “ESPN”, and females on Oprah and Lifetime.
The only thing many producers see is a demographic; they do not even know how to market films to families.
With the invention of computers, the internet, videos, video games, social networks like My-Space, families function independently without the parental influence, nurturing, guidance, and especially the loving touch of father and mother throughout the day.
When parents try to communicate with their children without first understanding the child’s means of entertainment, it becomes an exercise in futility because they are speaking a different language- literally!!!!!!!
Do not fear, for all is not lost. We, as a society and as Christians can find ways to strengthen the family. The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph shows us how. They practiced, on a daily basis, patience, obedience, love, and faith in God, even while going through their toughest times.
Like us, the Holy Family was very human and had their share of difficulties. They were poor, powerless, homeless. They were forced by the Roman Emperor to leave Bethlehem , where Mary gave birth to her son, Jesus and laid Him in a stable of animals.
King Herod’s cruelty forced them to seek refuge in Egypt. But through all these trials they placed themselves in the hands of God. God was the center of all they did. This is what Hannah from our first reading had done.
She placed, in God’s hands, the want to have a child. Here request was so important to here that she promised the child to God after the child was weaned. And so, Hannah conceived a boy and she named him Samuel.
Great things happen when we place ourselves, and even our family’s
in the hands of the one who created us. This is what the gospel is all about; the nurturing of the family, each member, by God’s love and compassion and mercy.
Mary and Joseph, even though they could not, at that time, realize what Jesus was doing and could not understand why Jesus answered them the way he did, showed compassion and love by accepting Jesus’ answer which was in the form of a question: “did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” I know what most parents would do in this day and age if their child of 12 was missing for 3 days and I suspect that you know also. It would be a different outcome.
Could it be all that possible that the subversion of being “about our father’s business” or of being “in our father’s house” might actually be the solution for problems that we are trying to solve by our own wisdom and human priorities? Could it be that the same principal of reversal that underlies “those who lose their lives will save it” also applies to those who focus on God?
Bring back God into the family and see what happens. Lives will be transformed and the family unit will once again become strong and the Church will once again be the stronghold that nourishes and feeds the family through the sacramental life it contains.
Christmas is now over. What now”? I say, “let us be about our Father’s business”. For we “who are in our Father’s house” Christmas is not over. It has only begun and we take on the responsibility of being the example in our society of the Family who showed us that the family is a sacred place where God lives!!!!!!!!!!!