Location: Basilica of Saint Francis
Xavier (Dyersville, IA) – 8:30 & 10:30 a.m. Sunday Masses
Date: Sunday December 29th,
2013 (Feast of the Holy Family)
READINGS:
1st Reading: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14Resp. Psalm: Ps. 128:1-2, 3, 4-5
2nd Reading: Colossians 3:12-21 (OR 3:12-17 {short form})
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
For
many of us, family is very important this time of year. We all have different families, and maybe some
our family gatherings are relatively peaceful, while others are perhaps a bit more
contentious. No family is perfect – not even
the family we celebrate today, the Holy Family.
St. Joseph often gets the shortest straw when it comes to describing the
imperfection of the Holy Family, because Mary was conceived without sin and
Jesus is the Son of God and that leaves poor Joseph, the sinner, with all the
blame for the Holy Family’s imperfection J That’s more of a joke than anything, because
actually the Holy Family (like all families) experienced not only the
imperfection of family life, but also the imperfection of human life, generally
speaking.
Being
an imperfect person – such as we all are – is tough; and being an imperfect person
who’s also a member of an imperfect family which is living in an imperfect
world is likewise tough. In every family
there are differences of opinion and arguments and resentments and unresolved
conflict that build up over time; every family faces some measure of
dysfunction because none of us are perfect and there is no such thing as a
perfect family.
Consider
the imperfections of the Holy Family – Mary conceived Jesus (through the power
of the Holy Spirit) before she was officially married to Joseph; in the Gospel
reading for today, the Holy Family had to retreat to Egypt in order to escape
King Herod’s persecution and the slaughter of the Holy Innocents; when Jesus
was 12 years old He decided not to return home with Mary and Joseph and instead
remained behind in the temple talking to the elders, causing his parents much
anxiety; Joseph probably died before Jesus began His public ministry, making Mary
a widow and one of the most vulnerable members of society; and when He became
an adult, Jesus abandoned his money-making business as a carpenter and instead
embraced His vocation to be a poor, homeless preacher; Mary watched her only Son
suffer a horrible death by crucifixion at the age of 33; and finally, after His
resurrection from the dead, Jesus ascended into heaven and Mary went to live with
St. John the Apostle for the rest of her days.
As
you can see, there is all kinds of imperfection present in the life of the Holy
Family; they experienced uncertainty about the future, sorrow, anxiety, fear, and
so much more; they were a human family, and although we know them now as the
Holy Family, they weren’t a perfect family.
And yet, despite all the imperfections they experienced, the Church
proposes them to us as a model for Christian family life, not because they were
perfect, but precisely because they weren’t perfect and still remained faithful
in the midst of it all.
The
Church calls every Christian family to be a “domestic Church.” That means that the Church envisions the Christian
family to be the first and primary setting where children learn to forgive, to
share, to respect the property of others, to pray, to worship, and to know God
as a loving Father; this is the ideal for every Christian family, although every
Christian family struggles to live up to this ideal.
In
describing the family as the Domestic Church, I want to offer a section from the
Catechism of the Catholic Church; they are paragraphs 1656 and 1657:
1656)
In our own time, in a world often alien
and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers
of living, radiant faith. For this
reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the
family the Ecclesia domestica. It is in
the bosom of the family that parents are "by word and example … the first
heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them
in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any
religious vocation."
1657)
It is here that the father of the family,
the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of
the baptized in a privileged way "by the reception of the sacraments,
prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active
charity." Thus the home is the
first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment." Here one learns endurance and the joy of
work, fraternal love, generous – even repeated – forgiveness, and above all
divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life.
The
Christian family is called to be that place where we not only learn that our
parents love us, but where we learn that God loves us, too; the Christian
family is called to pass on the faith to children by word and example, to
foster within each member of the family the God-given vocation unique to that
child, and to be the first center of learning for human and Christian virtue.
But
what does this look like? As I’ve said
before, I do not come from a perfect family; we have many flaws and imperfections
in the Diehm family; but I’m thankful that my family tried hard to be a
Christian family – we always ate and prayed together before meals as a family,
we went to Church together every Sunday as a family, Mom and Dad always came in,
said a prayer at our bedside, and tucked us in every night, and they made financial
sacrifices so that my sisters and I could all receive a Catholic education. I’m positive it all helped lay the foundation
for me embrace my vocation to be a Catholic priest.
I’m
not saying every family needs to be like mine; but I think we all need to find
a way to imitate the example of the Holy Family and embrace the call for our
families to become domestic churches, where children grow up knowing that they’re
loved by their parents and by God. Start
with regular prayer in the home – pray together before meals and before bed; teach
children basic Catholic prayers or pray a Rosary together as a family once a
week; and pray for specific family, parish, or community prayer intentions. Read Bible stories or stories from the Lives
of the Saints together as a family. Encourage
children to think about and pray about their vocation, especially a possible
religious vocation. When children have
questions about their faith, help them find the answers by reading together a
children’s catechism. But most
importantly, take an active role in passing on our Catholic faith to the next
generation and remember that Christian parents are the first and primary
teachers of their children in the Christian faith.
With
the help and intercession of the Holy Family, may our families become sanctuaries
of faith for our children; and may God continue to bless our families, today
and always.
