I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas. I know of a couple who invited the entire family clan to dinner. And at the table, the mother turned to one of her youngsters and said, “Would you like to say the blessing.” The youngster replied, “I don’t know what to say?” “Just say what you’ve heard Mommy say,” the mother answered. And the youngster bowed his head and said, “Lord, why on earth did I invite so many to dinner?” Happily everyone laughed.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
The word of God first takes us back to the eleventh century before Jesus, an unstable era in Hebrew history. A woman, Hannah, prayed for a child. God heard her prayer. The parents then gave their child, Samuel, for God’s service in the shrine at Shiloh. Samuel grew up to be a great prophet with a significant role in ancient Israel.
The word of God invites us to make our family needs known to God.
The letter of John speaks of God’s immense love for us. God has gifted us with divine status. We are his children, sons and daughters of God our Father, and our destiny is to be like God, to see God as God is. And we become like God, here and now, by striving to reflect godlike attitudes and behaviors.
In the Gospel, the family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph made a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. There, young Jesus astonished the rabbis with his wisdom.
On their way back Mary and Joseph suddenly realized Jesus was missing. But their anxiety turned into joy when they found him.
This close-knit holy family went back home to Nazareth, where Jesus grew in wisdom and age and God’s favor. For twenty-some years, this family stuck together as Jesus grew. They fled to Egypt together. They lived in a backwater village and worked together at ordinary tasks.
Joseph, tradition says, earned his loved ones’ daily bread with the skill of his hands. Mary baked and spun, carried water, and taught Jesus to pray. They lived a simple and natural human life.
They did ordinary things extraordinarily well—that's the secret to holiness. And as in any family, Mary eventually waved goodbye to Jesus as he set off for his life’s mission. She experienced the empty nest!
Theirs was a holy family, and so too is ours—living together with joys and tensions, working together, playing and praying together.
I think of a more recent true story. When diamond fever hit Africa, a man sold his farm and searched the continent, finding nothing. But the new owner found a strange-looking stone and placed it on his fireplace mantel. A visitor noticed it and shouted excitedly, “This is a diamond! One of the largest I’ve seen.” The farm was loaded with diamonds.
The point is this: some people don’t notice what they have at their own home. Some never see the “gems” in their own families. Stop and smell the roses. Cherish your family. Notice the gems all around you.
What sustained the holy family in Nazareth? And what sustains ours? I would suggest three virtues: faithfulness, courage, and prudence.
There’s no virtue more important than faithfulness for sustaining family life. Married couples are called to be open to new life, and to nourish and educate the children with whom God gifts them. To do this well, parents need to be faithful to each other and to their children.
Faithfulness builds trust. Children trust that parents will always be there. We all need to know that someone loves us and will be there for us. Yes, sometimes parents show tough love for the good of a child. But we need the anchor of faithfulness in our ever-changing world.
Second, families need courage. William Bennett’s Book of Virtues presents the stories of David and Goliath, Susan B. Anthony, and Rosa Parks. Courage is about moral character: who we are at our core. It is an attitude that challenges us, despite our fears, to stand up for what is right and true and good.
Many of us would name Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Mother Teresa as courageous people.
And we probably would include our parents. We have seen up close the sacrifices they’ve made for us. Commitment requires courage. Parental courage reaches a crescendo when children become teenagers. Parents can’t protect them from the many forces in society that can destroy people physically and morally. Children grow, and eventually parents must let them fly. Parenting, sustaining life, requires courage, always striving to do the right thing even when we’re not sure it’s right.
And the third virtue for families is prudence: the instinct to seek the right thing to do. Prudence and courage go hand in hand. Parents must act amid the messiness of life, often forced to make decisions without clearly seeing all possible outcomes. And often decisions are not either/or but both/and. It’s only by making prudent decisions daily that parents become experienced: while continually learning.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived as a holy family with faithfulness, courage, and prudence.
May we embrace God as an anchor for our own families and community, as we commence the special Jubilee Year of Hope proclaimed by our Holy Father Pope Francis. Amen.
