Today is the feast day of the Holy Family, the Sunday between the celebration of the Nativity, the Incarnation of our God, and of the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. Today, the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s is a day of celebration for Jesus, Mary and Joseph as a family, the Holy Family. The question for today is a short one, but not an easy one to answer. What is “a holy family?” Yes, that’s the question: not what is “The Holy Family,” but rather, what is A holy family?
Is it a holy family when a teenage mother gives birth to a child and her husband is not the father? Is it a holy family when the husband hears voices at night, in his dreams, and forces his wife and foster-child to move to a foreign country? Is it a holy family when they try to return home, only to find the husband’s dreams say they must live in a city in a strange part of the country, because the central government is still out to get them? Is it a holy family when the husband dies and leaves his beloved wife in the care of a son, who shortly, thereafter, leaves her alone so he can wander the countryside with his buddies and teach them they should all live as free as lilies of the field or birds of the air? Is it a holy family when his ever-suffering, ever-loving mother sees him thrown into jail and hung, naked on a cross, accused of being an enemy of the state and a blasphemer of God? If any of this happened today, we would say this was an extremely dysfunctional family and urge them to seek counseling. Well, a holy family is, indeed, all that I’ve just outlined, and more, much more.
But before we take a look at what makes up a holy family, perhaps we should look at what makes up a “family,” itself. First of all, a family can be composed of the classical mother, father and “two point three children,” although I’ve seldom seen a “point three child” in any of the shopping malls I visit. A family can also have a single parent (mother or father) with one or more kids. A family can have birth children, adopted children, foster children or no children. A family can have stepparents and half-brothers or half-sisters. A family can have grandparents raising their grandchildren with their own child seldom in sight. In fact, there can, also, be families without even parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles around. There are some who work in an occupation where the members call one another “family” and really mean it. We can be part of a “family of Christ the Good Shepherd.” Or we can be part of the family of humanity. From time to time, we even hear about a “family of nations.” So, then, what is a family? A family is a set of relationships, not relatives. Not those linked to you by blood or marriage but by relationships, a union of hearts and souls.
And so, what is the opposite of a family? Could it be possible that the opposite of “family” is “loneliness?” A lack of relationships, a life of shattered relationships? Loneliness may be a strange thing to think about at this time of year, a time of the year when all of the TV commercials and songs have been reminding us of being together with those we love and who love us. But, for some, the Christmas season can be the loneliest time of the year. This may be especially true this year, when so many people we know have been deployed to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or to other parts of this war-torn, embattled world.
For the past several weeks, we may have tried to escape this loneliness and hide our concerns about others, by pouring ourselves into holiday activities, parties and shopping, writing cards and e-mails. Baking goodies. Hanging lights, and decorating trees. But now it’s all over. Christmas Day has, once again, come and gone. And we ask ourselves, “Was it all worth it?” Is there more joy today, four or five days after Christmas, after the day we celebrated the birth of the Christ Child, than there was the day before Christmas?
Has a lack of joy, a slight depression, already set in? Do we detect an edge of loneliness on the horizon? Could it be that this mist of loneliness is a manifestation of our need to be loved, a need to feel special? Is this loneliness the result of a lack of relationships in our lives? To see what I mean, let’s take a closer look at today’s readings.
In that First Reading from Sirach, we heard how we should make our parents feel special. We don’t often, in our roles as children, whether we are 6, 16, or 46, reflect on how we need to honor our parents, to assure them of our love for them. And yet our reading reminds us: “God sets a father in honor over his children, a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons. Whoever reveres his father will live a long life; he who obeys his father brings comfort to his mother. – Kindness to a father will not be forgotten.”
In today’s world, there are many who live longer than in prior times. Today, there is the so-called “sandwich generation,” who have obligations not only for their young children but, also, for their aging parents. There are both the “young” and the “not young” who crave positive relationships. No matter what years have passed or are to come, every one of us wants to be loved. We want to feel special.
Saint Paul once again gives advice on how to accomplish this. He wrote in a letter to the Colossians these instructions for their Christian relationships. “Brothers and Sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.” Saint Paul’s words apply not only to the Colossians, but, also, to everyone who wants to be part of “a holy family.” They apply to men and women, to boys and girls, to parents and children. To those who are married and those who are not.
All of us are to have relationships built on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. And most importantly, we are to forgive one another as Christ, himself, has forgiven us. It is through forgiveness that loneliness is overcome. It is in a lack of forgiveness of others, and even of the events of the world, itself, that we are isolated from one another, from the world, from ourselves, and even, at times, from God.
We build our own walls between us and others. We block off the relationships which can make us a holy family, a family living together with God as our Father. Perhaps, it was even necessary for Mary to forgive Joseph what she might have thought was a great imposition, to flee from Bethlehem to Egypt and then to return to the strangeness of Galilee. Perhaps, she even needed to forgive Jesus when he left her to go about his true Father’s business of proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God. Certainly her son, hanging on that cross, forgave those who tortured and murdered him. It is through such acts of forgiveness that we forge our own relationships with one another.
Perhaps, now, today, as we await the coming of a New Year, we can resolve to reestablish our relationships with one another and to overcome our loneliness. Perhaps, now, today, instead of fleeing our circumstances because of the visions we dream, we can entertain other dreams of hope and encouragement, and act upon these new visions. Perhaps, now, today, we can also resolve to “ … do, in word or in deed … everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Perhaps, now, today, we, too, can begin our new life as “a holy family.”
Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph; December 30, 2007
Sir 3:2-6, 12-14; Col 3:12 – 17 (short form); Mt 2:13-15, 19-23