Holy Families
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Lectionary: 17
Today we mark the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We have several options for our readings to help us understand what it means to be a holy family.
The first reading may come from Sirach, or from Genesis.
In Sirach, we are taught that honoring our parents is a commandment that comes with promises. Honoring our parents atones for sins, preserves us from sin, ensures God hears our prayers, and more. As adult children, we are reminded to care for our parents, and to be respectful of our parents even when their mind fails. In a holy family, the parents bear a responsibility to discipline their children and to teach them obedience and respect so they can grow to become happy, healthy, and holy.
The reading (we just heard) from Genesis relates God’s promise to Abram that he would have a son and that through this son his descendants would be like the stars in the sky. It goes on to relate the fulfilment of that promise in Isaac who became an ancestor of Jesus. Sometimes, God does the impossible for and through our families. Abram had no idea that the savior of the world would come to us through his family. All he knew was that he didn’t have an heir. Abram was nothing special, really, but he believed in the promises of God, and God credited that to him as righteousness. His prayers and faith affected the course of all human history. Likewise, the prayers and faith lived out in our families can affect things far beyond us.
John Bergsma recently wrote that “the salvation of the world frequently did, and still does, come down to quiet decisions and acts of faith made by parents in out-of-the-way times and places, decisions and acts that are never reported in the papers or on the internet, but which lead to conception and birth of new human beings who ultimately will change the world.” That is true of Abram, of the Holy Family, and of us.
We also have several options for the second reading. One is from the letter to the Hebrews, and summarizes that same story of Abraham.
In the other option (we just heard) from Colossians, Saint Paul instructs wives to be subordinate to their husbands, husbands to love their wives and not to provoke their children, and children to obey their parents. We often choose to skip the portion of that reading dealing with wives being subordinate and husbands being loving, because it makes us uncomfortable. That’s unfortunate. Paul was calling for Christians to behave very differently from the world around them. There was nothing unusual about instructing children to obey or wives to be respectful. It was very unusual to instruct husbands to love their wives. Wives and children were usually treated as servants or property. To instruct husbands to love their wives and to be kind to their children was truly a call to a different kind of relationship. Saint Paul instructs us to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving, and loving. These are all marks of a holy family.
Today’s Gospel does not recount anything extraordinary about the Holy Family’s actions. We do not read about any miracles, or any heroism. They simply went to the temple to fulfil the customary duty to present their first-born child. Most of us will never do anything extraordinary in our lives. But holiness does not require extraordinary things. Anna and Simeon experienced great joy simply because Joseph and Mary came to the temple the way any ordinary family would. By their faithfulness in little things, others were blessed. They did not consider themselves somehow special or different from every other family. They did not exempt themselves from the regulations and rituals everyone else had to follow. Their humility and obedience are marks of a holy family.
God declared that the firstborn among the Israelites belongs to God. This does not mean God asked for human sacrifice, but rather that the firstborn was required to devote his life to service in the temple. A ritual arose, which is called “Pidyon ha-Ben,” or “Redemption of the Son.” In this ritual, the father brings his son to the temple, announces that it is his firstborn son, and is given the opportunity to present a gift of money to ransom his son from temple service. There is no record that Jesus was redeemed in this way. Through this, we see that Jesus is greater than the temple, meaning that God is more perfectly present in the child Jesus, than in the temple prepared to host God’s glory. It also points to his calling as our great high priest. But, for us, I think the lesson is that our children belong to God first. We should entrust them to God and encourage them by our word and example to seek and to serve God in the liturgy, in the community, and in the world.
At the presentation, Simeon’s prophecy is that Jesus and his mother will experience suffering. Often, we bring suffering upon ourselves by our bad choices, but even the most holy family is not exempt from suffering. Suffering will come. It does not mean God has abandoned us, or is angry with us. Our temptation sometimes is to be angry with God when we suffer, and especially when our family suffers. Instead, we can consider the suffering a call to trust God more completely. God is in control, and God’s desire is our salvation. If we will trust in that, our sufferings will perhaps not make any more sense, but will have value if we allow them to teach us how to trust God’s power and love.
We are called to be holy families. We are not called to do extraordinary things, only to be loving to one another, and to trust and serve God in ordinary things. The members of the Holy Family desire that we will grow in faith, hope, and love, to become holy, as they are holy, and will help us, if we allow them.
