This weekend we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family. I struggle with the disparity between the holiness of the Holy Family as reflected in this Sunday’s readings and the reality of family life in the present day. In Luke’s gospel we listen to the story of boy Jesus stepping outside the family circle to engage elders in the temple. That had to be more exciting for Jesus than helping in the workshop or bringing in water from the well. When Mary and Joseph find him in the temple they discover him talking with the teachers of the law. In most families, Jesus would have received a tongue lashing and been grounded. The challenges for families today are as insistent and more intense than ever before in human history. The drumbeat of consumerism focuses us on things instead of relationships. Technology focuses us on how many “likes” we can collect as if those “likes” amounted to being loved and cared about which they really are not about. Cell phone technology removes the need to “listen” to one another. Individuals control their contacts. We quickly learn how to “unfriend.” Even though voices against history’s patriarchal past are loud and insistent, our world seems to be moving towards authoritarian leadership fuelled by divisive rhetoric pitting race against race, gender against gender, truth against dishonesty.
On this celebration of the family we can only hope to find in the good news a way to transform our families. simply put the message is respect for the other, for listening to the other, and in loving the other. In Luke’s gospel, the return of Jesus with his parents and in his listening to them is a model for not only children but also parents. We should be listening with one’s heart and will. We need to listen to our children, to our spouses, to our extended families. If we listen we learn from them, share with them, and respect them in their personal struggles and in their accomplishments hopes and dreams. As we think about the Holy Family we recognize the sacrifice that Joseph and Mary made for Jesus, in the same way as we recognize the many sacrifices our own parents made for us and many more are making for their children today in our I want what I want and I get what I want world.
Our families would find the disagreements, stressful relationships, and resentments that spoil the joy of family harmony so much easier to solve by trying to imitate the faith, love and trust of the Holy Family. “Lord Jesus, you came to restore us to unity with the Father in heaven. Where there is division, bring healing and pardon. May all people and families find peace, wholeness, and unity in you, the Prince of Peace.”
Fullerton T 