Homily for Feast of the Holy Family - December 26, 2021

 

Homily for Feast of the Holy Family

December 26, 2021

The Holy Family: A Model for Families

 

            This year I received a Christmas card from a dear family, and the photograph was the family posing as the Holy Family. It was very cute – their two-year-old was in a wooden manger, their older kids were shepherds and wise men, and the parents were Mary and Jesus. But as I looked at it, I thought…little Joey is never that peaceful. He’s a two-year-old terror. How long did it take to get this photo right? And then I turned it over on the other side and saw the outtake photos – there was Joey throwing a temper tantrum, and the kids looking all disheveled and disorderly, and the parents screaming at the kids…that was more like the family I knew!

            Doesn’t that sometimes feel like life in our families? We want our family to look like the Holy Family, but it ends up looking like a mess. We think it’s too much of a struggle to be like that picture-perfect family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. But today’s Gospel shows us a scene from the Holy Family that is less-than-perfect – they lose their kid for three days! Even messy and imperfect families can be good and holy families. But how? Let’s turn to the Gospel.

            First, we see parents who love the Lord and center their lives on Him. Notice how this Gospel begins by saying that “each year” the family went to Jerusalem “as was their custom.” It was expected that worshipping God would be the centerpiece of this family. I’m sure they kept the sabbath, went to synagogue, taught the child Jesus how to pray and read the Scriptures.

            It is beautiful to hear stories of people who say, “My mother and father are the holiest people I know.” That is true in my case – if my father ever asked me to get something off of his dresser, I would have to search for it amidst a sea of prayerbooks and Rosaries, all of which were well-worn from daily use. If parents have a personal, daily friendship with God, keeping Him at the absolute center of their lives, the children will realize this.

            Ah, but here’s the critical piece – all of us want to believe that Jesus is the center of our families and our lives, but is He? How many times have I heard, “I sent my kids to Catholic school, and we went to Mass most Sundays, why did they abandon the Faith?” Because that’s passing the buck. Christ at the center of a family means that we keep God in every aspect of our life. We go on vacation – and we look up where to attend Mass. We pray about whether God is calling us to be more generous with our family size, or with our money. We are willing to be countercultural and not let our kids have smartphones, or at least put strong parental controls on them. We make it clear to our kids that their souls are more important than their grades or getting into a good college. We live in a culture that screams, “There is no God!” for a hundred hours a week – one hour on Sunday is not enough to counteract that message unless our family is completely living for Christ! It takes sacrifice, but so did an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem on foot…God was worth it for the Holy Family, and He is worth it for yours.

            Did you notice Jesus’ response after this dialogue between himself and Mary? It says that He went home and “was obedient to them.” Pause for a minute and let that sink in. The creator of the Universe, the all-Holy God, was obedient to a mere human being? Yes, and that is the way God ordered families for their holiness. Children under 18 grow in holiness through obedience to their parents! Consider if you had two pens. One didn’t function well and was moody; you had to hold it a certain way to write, and sometimes the ink didn’t flow properly, and it only worked if the room temperature was over 70…and you had another pen that worked any time you needed it. Which would be your favorite? In the same way, God wants young people to develop that total obedience to their parents – not when they “feel like it” or only in things that are convenient – because God wants to mold us to become HIS obedient sons and daughters. The goal isn’t, “Oh, I turn 18 and now I can do anything I want!” – the goal is, “Oh, now I am 18 and have been well-trained in obedience so I will become a good, docile son of God.” Our obedience doesn’t stop when we get older, it becomes given over to God so He can entrust us with greater tasks.

            It is true that over 18, we don’t have to obey our parents, but we must always respect them. I know many of us struggle because we have to take care of ill or aged parents. But it says in Scripture that “kindness to our fathers will never be forgotten by God.” Considering every way our parents were there for us, we learn to love by taking care of them in return. Do not abandon them in the time of their need!

            A final insight into a Holy Family is in this great exchange between Mary and Jesus. Mary asks Him, “Where have you been?” And Jesus gives a seemingly snarky response, “Don’t you know I have to be about my Father’s business?” (Anyone with teens has heard this kind of sarcasm!) But really, Jesus is teaching us that there is one thing more important than family – and that is our relationship to Him.

            King St. Louis IX of France had a very holy mother, Queen Blanche, who would tell him frequently as a young boy, “I love you my dear son, as much as a mother can love her child; but I would rather see you dead at my feet than that you should commit a mortal sin.” Shocking words – but not really, if you realize that she was just teaching him to love the Lord more than anything, including more than loving her. And King St. Louis IX took that instruction to heart – he never did commit a mortal sin, and kept his soul as pure as it had been on its baptismal day.

            Our family is a great gift from God, but it’s not the most important relationship in our lives. So when our sister-in-law doesn’t want us to pray before our family dinner because it “offends” her, or when our uncle asks why we’re such religious fanatics that we go to church every week, we smile and tell them that we love God before all else. Even Jesus had to obey His Heavenly Father over His earthly parents!

            Finally, we can all recognize that family life is messy. Jesus was born in a stable, and got lost for three days. God doesn’t wait until your family is Hallmark-perfect to become a holy family. Rather, seeking the intercession and imitation of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, God wants to make even our messy families into a holy family.