Our families are not perfect, but we need to ponder what makes a family a holy family.

Feast of the Holy Family  C  2018

The feast of the Holy Family offers the opportunity to reflect on the mystery of family life. In reality, every family and community share the perplexing, frustrating, demanding challenge the evangelist Luke described. Put most simply, Mary and Joseph faced the difficult discovery that Jesus was not going along with them every step of the way. It is a real story of a family conflict and is symbolic of all kinds of relationships.

Every family and community have its share of the challenges summarized here. We know what it is like when family members do not go along with us on the journey. When Mary and Joseph confronted Jesus in the Temple, they confronted the fact that he would have to discover his own path in life. No matter what they might hope for him, he did not belong to them.

On Christmas afternoon, I had the wonderful opportunity of gathering with my large extended family at my nephew’s Justin and Kate’s home in Avon.  Our extended family is not just the idealistic home of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  Rather, our family life is composed of many, many blessings and many, many challenges.  This was the first Christmas for my sister Anne after her husband Larry has gone home to God.  One of my nieces is a single mom.  Another niece is coping with her husband’s serious illness – a brain tumor.  Other family members are discovering the mystery of their own sexuality.

What draws us together with so much joy?  Our love for one another.  Again, this is not to say that this love for one another does not have our share of challenges.

So you can ask if our family and your family is a holy family?  For sure, our families are not perfect, but we need to ponder on what makes a family a holy family.

The Gospel account of the Holy Family reminds us that love is rooted in profound reverence for the mystery of the other. Such reverence cultivates profound respect for the other’s mysterious freedom. In that, we learn to desire that the other will become who they are meant to be rather than what we would have them be.

The challenge for every parent as your children grow into adulthood is to allow and love your children into becoming who they are meant to be rather than what we would have them be.

In today’s Gospel, Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were a day’s journey out of Jerusalem when they discovered that Jesus was not with them. Luke describes their consternation as they looked among the people they journeyed with but did not find him. But according to Luke, they did not return to search all over Jerusalem, checking out the markets and recreation spots that might have interested a budding adolescent. They went to the Temple and found their curious child listening to the scholars who spoke of the things of God.

They knew their son and had a good idea where they might find him. They understood him; they were his first teachers. As they taught him what every child needs to learn, they had seen his fascination with the things of God — which for him included everything.

The feast of the Holy Family invites us to celebrate our relationships with those we love most deeply. It reminds us that the greatest gift we can give others is to respect and nurture their freedom to become all God has created them to be. Whether it is with children, spouses, siblings or members of our communities, we know it will not be easy. But with Mary, we can pray, “Dear God! You never warned me!” and remember the only assurance she was ever given: “Nothing will be impossible for God.”

Shakespeare said it well: "The way of true love never did go smooth.”  All families have a bit of the zigzagged messiness in the relationships with our extended family.  We are not perfect, don’t you know.

But the Christmas mystery we continue to celebrate is that God is with us and God is to be found in our family life and therefore our family is a holy family.  God had chosen to be born and live in the beauty and the craziness of our family life.

A beautiful God moment for me in our Christmas family celebration was when my five year old grand-niece was having a melt-down.  She was in tears.  I have no idea of what was causing the melt-down.  But I was observing her in the arms of her loving mom who simply was listening and loving her daughter.  Knowing that she was loved and listened to and understood by her mom made everything ok for my grand-niece.  She then went back being the life of the party.

I said to myself that’s what family is – a place in which you receive love and acceptance you don’t have to earn.  You are just simply loved into life.  This was such a God moment for me.  Where there is love in family, there is God.  God is love.  Love makes a family a holy family.

That Gospel should also remind us that Jesus came to create a much larger family than the holy trio of Jesus Mary and Joseph. He was about his Father’s business; he was sent to reconcile all people to God and to one another.

Any healthy family finds its love spilling beyond the household to many others, and the more a family grows in love, the wider that circle of love becomes.  We are gifted with our natural families, but we are called to expand our hearts to include all our brothers and sisters who share this planet.

The Feast of the Holy Family is a Christmas feast in which Jesus seeks to be the light that overcomes the darkness.  Ultimately this feast is a story about being at home with our God.  What would it take for us to imagine that we belong to a global family in which we all are brothers and sisters.  Christ has come to be the Savior of all of humanity, and are called as a global family to speak the language of love to one another.

Is this an impossible dream?  I pray that with God all things are possible.

Have a Blessed Day.