Homily Feast of the Holy Family - December 26, 2021

 

Homily Sunday Feast of the Holy Family
1^st Readings- Sirach 3: 2-6, 12-14 – God sets a Father in honor over his children
2^nd Reading- Colossians 3: 12-17 – Over all of these, put on love
Gospel: Luke 2: 41-52 – Finding of the Lost boy Jesus in the Temple

 

A son took his elderly father to a restaurant for an evening dinner.  The father being very old and weak, while eating, dropped food on his shirt and trousers.  Other people in the restaurant watched him in disgust while his son was calm.  After he finished eating, his son who was not at all embarrassed, quietly took him to the bathroom, wiped the food particles from his clothes, removed the stains, combed his hair, and straightened his eyeglasses.  When they came out of the bathroom the entire restaurant was watching them in dead silence, not able to understand how someone could embarrass themselves publicly like that.  The son paid the bill and started walking out with his father.

As they were leaving, an old man among the diners called out to the son and said, “Thank you for taking such good care of your father.”  The son replied, “Sir, I am only doing for him what he did for me for so many years before”.  He, and my mother were always there for me. They cared for me and now it’s my turn to be there for them and care for them.  And with that the restaurant went silent.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family and I think the Church in her wisdom purposely placed this feast right after Christmas to bring us back down to earth.  You see, I think amidst all the hustle and bustle, all the noise, all the family dynamics which occur particularly at this time of year, we may forget how important family is, not only to our lives here on earth but also as the means to get to heaven.  You see it is only when we embrace the lessons that family can teach us that we can truly become holy. 

            And this is one of the things that Sirach is trying to teach us today.  It is God who created the family.  He made us to live as family and with that comes joys, tragedies, challenges, and responsibilities.  And it is in our response to these joys, tragedies, and challenges that we learn how to be holy.

            Now if we are looking for the best model for trying to be holy, a good place to start is with family of Jesus, Mary, & Joseph. But I think at times it might be easy to think “of course the family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is holy because one of those family members is the Son of God.  And I think, it would also be easy to think that this family could not have had the same challenges or struggles as other normal human families, but the Gospels tell us a different story.  To begin with, Mary finds herself in an unplanned pregnancy, or should I say a God planned pregnancy after she was already engaged to be married.  Then her Joseph her fiancé while trying to decide how to divorce her quietly and shield her from societal consequences receives a message from and angel telling him of God’s plan.  Towards the end of Mary’s pregnancy, she and Joseph were forced to travel about 100 miles on foot and donkey, from their home to another town to register for the census.  After they arrived, they found that there were no hotel rooms available much less a birthing center or a hospital, so she is forced to give birth to their child in a place meant to house animals.  Then sometime after their child’s birth, they are forced to flee to a foreign country because a maniacal king wanted to kill the child.  And it can be assumed that the trip was not an easy one for them because of the threat from robbers or attacks by wild animals while on the road. Once there, they had to find a way to survive in a strange land for several years.  And then after their return to Nazareth, in addition to the usual challenges of parenting a child, Mary and Joseph had to endure the worry and stress of having their 12-year-old child go missing during a trip to Jerusalem.  Later in life, Mary would have to endure the death of her husband, and her son’s father. These are the stories we know about.  There is probably much more we do not know.  The point is that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus faced many challenges as a family, but they faced them together.  Joseph protected and provided for Mary and Jesus.  Mary cared for Joseph and Jesus and kept their home in Nazareth.  They sacrificed and laid down their lives for each other and for their child.  And they were able to handle all the challenges they faced as a family because they trusted in God, they stayed together, and their love for one another was unconditional.  

            So, what does the Holy Family teach us?  Well one thing is to follow God’s lead.  Mary and Joseph were a couple who showed and openness to allowing God to lead their life together. They were open to the fact that God might speak to them. Another thing that the Holy Family models for us is to be teachers of faith and virtue.  The home in Nazareth, in addition to the local synagogue, would have been the place of instruction for the Christ Child.  Joseph and Mary taught Jesus how to read and study the scriptures. And as we know Jesus began his public ministry by opening the scroll in the synagogue and reading from the prophet Isaiah.  It was in the home in Nazareth that Jesus would have learned to pray the Shema every evening, “hear O Israel, the Lord our God is Lord alone.  Later, in life, He would teach his disciples how to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”  Joseph the chaste spouse and Mary the perpetual virgin would teach Jesus about purity and modesty, by the way they treated each other in his presence.  Throughout his young life, the virtues of compassion, humility, forgiveness, and charity were taught and modeled by his parents.  And He would carry all these things that he learned out in the world.

            This is how God intended us to live as family and this is how a family becomes holy.   But the challenge to live as family and to be holy has always been at the center of a spiritual battle.  Since the beginning when God created the 1^st family, and for every family since, it has been the devil’s primary mission to disrupt, diminish, and ultimately destroy that institution which so closely mirrors the love of God. 

            And today the threat to family is even greater, as we see our government and our society as a whole seeking to destroy the nuclear family.  What is happening today was predicted by Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children who witnessed the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima.  In 2005, shortly before her death, she wrote a letter to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop of Bologna, Italy.  In it she predicted that the final battle between Christ and Satan would be over marriage and the family.  And we are seeing her prediction being played out today in societal and legislative actions which attack marriage, family, and human dignity. We see it in government interference in the raising and education of children by their parents and promoting an ideology which states that not all human life is equal nor is it deserving of protection.  And this battle began with the erosion of religious freedom and the removal of God from the public discourse.  All the virtues which we are supposed to learn in the training ground that we call family such as forgiveness, compassion, dialogue, selflessness, sacrifice, all of these and other virtues are being erased from our consciousness.

            This is why today’s feast is so important.  Today we are reminded by the example of the family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that we are called to live, to learn from, to love each other, as family.  The family is God’s gift to us.  The family fulfills God’s plan for how we should live and treat each other.  The family is God’s blueprint for how we are to be holy.

Homily Sunday 26th Week in Ordinary Time - Checking for Millstones

 

    Billy Graham was a Southern Baptist Minister and prominent American Evangelist.  He was a spiritual consultant to several presidents, and he preached the Gospel to more people in person than any person in the history of Christianity.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights through non violence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs.  Then there was Dietrich Bonhoeffer a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident.  His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship is a modern classic.   He was hanged by the Nazis on April 9, 1945.

These are only three among many men and women, who throughout history have lent their voices and their lives to the service of the Gospel.  These three, as well as countless others were not Catholic and yet their words touched and changed the hearts of many for the better.  And while the Catholic Church is the church founded by Jesus Christ and offers the most important gift the Lord gave which is his body and blood in the Eucharist, repeatedly throughout history, His spirit has fallen on and continues to fall on others who do not necessarily believe in the Eucharist but still have participated in spreading the Gospel.  

Today we are reminded of a couple of things.  One is that we as Catholics don’t have a monopoly on being saved or bringing the words and love of Jesus to others.  The second is that anyone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus is accountable by his/her words and actions in their witness to others.

In today’s l^st reading, Moses has told the Lord that the burden for leading his people has become too great.  So, the Lord selects 70 elders from the tribes to help in leading the people.  When the day arrives for the Lord to pour out his spirit on those selected, two of them were not present but the Lord’s spirit falls on the two anyway.  When this happens, others among the people complain that these two were not present but were prophesying none the less. Then Joshua goes to Moses and tells him to stop them.  But then Moses questions them as to why they are jealous and says that he wished the Lord would pour out his spirit on all people.  

Then in the Gospel we hear a similar story.  John comes to Jesus and reports that he saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name and that they tried to stop him because this person was not one of Jesus’ followers.  It seems that his disciples who previously were unable to cast out a demon themselves, were now jealous that an outsider was doing the work they were called to do.  But Jesus says don’t stop him.  If he is doing good, meaning he is doing the things Jesus would do, then he won’t be speaking against Jesus.   

The first point of these two readings is that it is God who chooses, and it is God who calls.  It’s not for us to say who is qualified or worthy to do the Lord’s work.  Instead, we should be more worried about how well we ourselves are doing what the Lord has called us to do.  And that leads us to the second point.  We need to be looking within ourselves and outside of ourselves as to whether our thoughts, words, and actions are serving the Lord and bringing people closer to him or are we misleading or even driving people away from the Lord.  And Jesus uses some strong language today in telling us that, we who say we are his disciples, we who are Christian are accountable for the souls of others.  He says, “whoever causes one of these who believe in me to sin, it is better that a millstone be tied around his neck, and he be cast into the sea.  Now just so you have an idea of the magnitude of what Jesus was saying, a millstone, from ancient times and on up through the middle-ages was used to grind grain. This was done by placing the grain on a flat disk made of stone and then another disc which had a hole in its center was turned on its side and with a wooden axle slid through the hole, the millstone was rolled over the grain to turn the grain into flour.  These millstones were 4ft to 5ft in diameter and weighed upwards of a 1,000 lbs.  So, Jesus in using this imagery was stating just how great the responsibility is to not lead people into sin.  And given the actions of a number of people today in our country and in our church, I suspect there might be some righteous minded folks who would want to rush right out and buy stock in millstones.  

But the thing we need to remember is that when Jesus said anything it was meant to be personal. It was a message for each person to reflect on how Jesus’ words relate to their own life experience and behavior.  Whenever we read or hear the scriptures, we should first be thinking, “how am I living up to these words?” 

When I was young, my father told me that whenever I left the house, I carried the name of Martin with me.  And he impressed on me that my words and my actions reflected directly on him, my mother, and our whole family.  And so, it is with us as Christians.  The way we speak and act at home and out in the world will determine whether people have a positive accurate view of Jesus and the Church or are we giving them a negative, less than truthful image.  And when we speak and act in a way that is contrary to the Gospel we profess to believe, we can break people’s spirits and drive them away from the Lord and closer to sin.  And it’s interesting that in the original translation of this Gospel, the sin of leading others to sin is called scandal. It is considered a scandal to confuse the faithful.  It is a sin in which not only the body of Christ is injured, but the credibility of the Gospel is brought into question.

Two examples come to mind from current events.  One is the clergy abuse scandal by which victims within and outside the Church have suffered.  The sinful and heinous actions of small percentage clergy have done grave harm to the body of Christ and driven people away from the faith.  The second example is of Catholic and Christian political leaders and other prominent people who promote, support, and even mandate the killing of the most vulnerable among us; the born, the unborn, the elderly, and others while continuing to declare their devout faith.  They have also promoted and legislated policies which attack Marriage and the Family while validating gender confusion and other sinful lifestyles.  And the result of these actions by our civic and church leaders is that people have either become confused as to what a Catholic or Christian stands for or they have lost faith and trust in our government and in our Churches.  So, knowing all of this, what should we be doing?  Well, we need to be praying for those for whom the millstone is great and the danger to their souls is greater.  But before we do that, we must first pray for ourselves.  

We must pray that by what we say and do, we can live out the truth of the Gospel with courage and love.  We must pray that by our words and actions we are not leading people to sin by confusing them as to what our faith teaches and by behavior which contradicts what Jesus requires of us has his disciples.  Jesus uses very strong language to tell us that we should get rid of anything that leads us to sin or could cause another to sin.  Now he didn’t really mean that we should pluck out our eyes or cut off our hands, but that we need to examine our behavior to see what we must change.  Whether it is anger, resentment, failure to forgive, excessive desire for material things, lack of proper reverence for the Lord, or any other thing that causes us to sin, we must get rid of it.  If anything in our behavior causes another to sin or to become confused about what Jesus said and did, then we need to get rid of it.   

To do otherwise poses a danger to our souls and to the souls of those the Lord has called us to serve.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily - Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, & Joseph

 

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family.  It is a Feast that we celebrate just after Christmas and it is intended to help us focus on the family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and we are encouraged to see them as a model for how a family should live.  But if you think about it, some people might be skeptical as to how the Holy Family could be a relatable model of family for the rest of us.  After all, how hard could it have been for them?  Joseph was a faithful son of Israel, a righteous man, and a man of courage and compassion who accepts the Angel’s proclamation that he should not be afraid to take Mary as his wife.  Then there is Mary, a sinless virgin who has found such favor with God, that God chooses her to be the mother of His son.  Finally, Joseph and Mary get to parent the perfect child because the child is no ordinary human child, rather he is also divine.  So, it would be easy to think that a family like theirs would have no drama and very little to worry about.  But as we know, this was not the case.

We get our first clue from today’s Gospel.  Mary and Joseph following the laws of their faith, bring their child to the temple to dedicate him to God.   While they are there they meet a holy man and somewhat of a prophet named Simeon who says some very unsettling things about their child.  Simeon calls the child the salvation that God has prepared for his people, a light to the gentiles and the glory of Israel. He goes on to say their child is destined to be the rise and fall of many.  Imagine that being said about your child at his/her Baptism.  And if that wasn’t strange enough, he tells Mary, “and you yourself a sword will pierce, so that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed.”  And as we know, this new family would have their share of troubles.  Not long after Simeon’s prediction, they would have to flee their home and go to Egypt, to escape King Herod who wanted to kill their child.  At the age of 12 years old, their child would go missing for three days.  Tradition also holds that Joseph probably died while Jesus was a young man before he started his public ministry leaving Mary alone, to parent their child.  Then Mary had to watch her Son be ridiculed over and over again during his public ministry.  Finally, she had to watch her son be arrested, and suffer the most horrible torture, and death.  Simeon’s prophecy was fulfilled many times over as sword after sword pierced her heart.   So, we might ask, given all that this family went through, how might they be a model for our families?   Well, the answer is that given all challenges, tragedies, and disappointments, they remained faithful and trusted in God.  This is why they are called holy.  They didn’t have to understand why all those things happened to them, they just had to believe that God was with them and knew things that they didn’t know.  But what they did know because it was a part of their heritage was that family was important to God. 

Think about it.  God started the world by creating a family, a man and a woman brought together in the Garden of Eden to be in relationship with God and with each other.  We also hear in the Book of Genesis that this family immediately came under temptation by the evil one.  And when they did, they had to choose whether they were going to trust in God or in themselves, and we know how that turned out.  But regardless of that choice, God still intended that the family continue. Yes, they had to leave the Garden, but they were still told to be fruitful and multiply, meaning they were to grow their family and continue to create families down through the ages.  Life wasn’t going to be easy, in fact God told them life was going to be hard, but He would not abandon them.  All they needed to do was to trust in God and remain faithful.

And this has been the story of families who trusted in God throughout time.  In today’s 1^st reading, we the story of Abraham and Sara.  Abraham was a man who trusted in God, so much so, that he took his wife, and all of his flocks and possessions and left his homeland because God told him to.  But God wasn’t finished with Abraham yet.  Today, we hear Abraham appealing to God, that he has not blessed them with children.  His wife Sara was thought to be infertile, and as such his only heir was going to be his servant.  But God has a different plan and tells him that Sara will have a child, and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars.  God’s plan for family continued because Abraham remained faithful to God.  Abraham’s family experienced their own troubles and even tragedies.  And Abraham’s faith would be tested again and again.  Most notably, in the story where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac as proof of his faithfulness.  Imagine the sword that pierced Abraham and Sara’s hearts.

But St. Paul tells us today, that it was Abraham’s faith in God when tested, which allowed the family to continue. “Through Isaac, descendants shall bear your name.”

So, in today’s readings, we should realize the importance that God places on family.  Because it is only within the family as God created it, that the love of God is displayed.  We are also reminded that the family has been under spiritual attack from within and from without since the beginning.

There is not one mother, father, or child within a family whose heart has not been pierced one or more times.  The parents whose child goes missing, falls prey to addiction, or tragically dies feel the thrust of the sword.  The husband who has to watch his wife suffer with cancer, or the wife who loses her husband to some disease; each of them feels their hearts being pierced over and over again.  The child who suffers the loss of a parent or suffers abuse at the hands of a parent, feels the pain of the sword piercing his or her heart.

In all of these instances, it is very difficult when a family is going through these things to feel the love of God, or to trust that God is allowing these things to happen for a higher purpose.  But this is the challenge of holiness.

We must also recognize that a family is the greatest threat to the devil winning souls.

In fact, Sister Lucia Santos, one the visionaries of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother in Fatima wrote something very prophetic in 2005 just before she died.  She said, “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family.’ Don't be afraid, she added, because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in every way by evil, because this is the decisive issue. Then she concluded: ‘nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head’.”

And the fact is that we are seeing this battle being waged today.  We are experiencing a diabolical effort to undermine the sanctity of Marriage as a Covenant between a man a woman, and to erase the existence of the nuclear family.

But this is why today’s feast is so important.  It reminds us that the family is of God because God is a family.  It reminds us that to be a holy family is for each member of the family to remain faithful to God, to be loving to one another, and to sacrifice one’s own desires for the benefit of others in the family. Just like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this feast reminds us that being in a family does not require us to be perfect, but it does require us to seek to be holy each and every day.