Sunday, December 27, 2020

27 December 2020 - holy families


Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, 

What made the Holy Family holy? Or put another way, how did they live and express the gift of God's grace that enabled them to be holy? They responded to God with the obedience of faith. It was a faith which did not allow them to be content to simply try to live their own plans in a way that conformed to God's standards. Instead, they put God's plans first. They strove always to do what God desired in the way he desired.

I want what you want,
I want it because you want it,
I want it as you want it,
I want it when you want it.


Joseph and Mary and Jesus lived together in such a way that they never put that which seemed easier before that which God desired. Whether this was Joseph following the promptings of the angel in his dreams, or Mary asking her son for a favor before his hour had come, or Jesus leaving his parents to be in his Father's house, they always put the will of God first. They seemed to have an understanding about this. When something was done which might make one of them feel slighted, as though another was not being considerate of them, as long as the reason for this was a God reason they were able to not only accept it but embrace it. They were a family where mission was first, and the plan for the mission was revealed by faith. We can get another picture of this sort of family by looking at that of Abraham, which was already a prophetic sign of the Holy Family who would be the true heirs of the promise made to him.

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, 
and he who had received the promises was ready to offer
his only son,
of whom it was said,
“Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.”
He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead,
and he received Isaac back as a symbol.

It is with faith as a basis that a family can truly be all that God intends it to be. Authority of parents, reverence of children, and mutual forgiveness and understanding, can only be worked out harmoniously, when we "put on love, that is the bond of perfection." But it is not love in the generic sense, it is the love of God revealed in Christ and expressed by our loving response to him. When we have this love as our music we are able to dance with one another. Authority does not become oppressive. Reverence does not become burdensome. When we step away from the mission into self-will we quickly find ourselves stepping on one another's toes.

There is no holy family which does not have Christ at it's center. But far from meaning that only Joseph and Mary are qualified to have such a family, all are invited to welcome Christ into the very center of their family lives. We do this when we let "the word of Christ dwell" in us.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, 
as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, 
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs 
with gratitude in your hearts to God.

Zechariah demonstrates how receiving Christ is meant to be the fulfillment of every human life, or how, as Saint John Paul the Great said, "Jesus Christ is the answer to the question posed by every human life" (from a homily). 

“Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,

This privilege was not unique to Zechariah. Jesus is the answer we all seek, the one in whom alone we can go in peace.
But who departs from this world in peace, but he who is persuaded that God was Christ reconciling the world to Himself, (2 Cor. 5.) who has nothing hostile to God, having derived to himself all peace by good works in himself?

- Origen
Let us welcome Jesus into our families today. We will not find doing so to be a burden, as though we would be weighed down by new if perhaps better rules. Rather when he is at the center of our families we will discover that he who makes all things new will make our families new as well.
The old man received the infant Christ, to convey thereby that this world, now worn out as it were with old age, should return to the childlike innocence of the Christian life.

- Saint Bede





 


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