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 1st 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment