Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: #2 (Bonus Article)

Dear Jesus,

There is a nostalgic irony for me as I celebrate the feast of the Holy Family this year. The feast day coincides with the first anniversary of my mother’s death. You can imagine how my mind leapfrogs through the years and revels in etched memories of how fortunate I was to be born into the family that was mine. It is there that I was formed into the believer that I am today. Mother and Father introduced me to you and told me that God loved me. In the panic of asthma attacks that filled nights with dread, I was held and rocked to assured that you were with me and that God held me too.

Childhood memories seem appropriate for this feast. But I wonder if they do not soften the mystery that should be proclaimed. So often the Gospel’s challenge is muted by accommodation and sentimentality. They protect me and shield me from the Gospel’s harsh demands. Surely I am not being called to poverty and challenged to literally take up the cross daily, am I? I don’t exactly want to ignore the challenge regarding my neighbor that incarnational feasts imply. Do I really have a responsibility for my brothers and sisters who share my common humanity?

Those thoughts have plagued my prayer these days. I remember my parents joking once on this feast that the make-up of the Holy Family was unique, never to be repeated. And we didn’t exactly fill the bill as duplicates. God bless them, they were right. But I wonder if in another way those types of excuses also help us miss the point you would like your disciples to get.

At the heart of Christmas celebrations and this feast in particular is the proclamation that you leapt through the darkness that engulfed humankind and took on our flesh wedding forever the human and the divine. For some, you were a scandal because there was so little about you that spoke of the power expected in the longed for Messiah. Born in a stable? Wrapped in swaddling clothes imitative of those strips that would enfold you in death? In a manger where animals feed as you would offer your body as food and your blood as drink? Joseph and Mary stored up these images to ponder and pray over and so find comfort and grace. And we do the same today. We ponder. We pray. We look for comfort and hope for grace.

Some demand that Christians look at the world’s condition and find there a denial of what is our core belief. There is no evidence of the Messianic Age. Swords are far from plows and spears from pruning hooks. Wars rage and some use God as war’s justification. Famine saps the strength of millions. Children die daily. AIDS and malaria kill. People continue to do violence to each other. Where are the Peace that you were supposed to bring, and the security?

What do you want me to find in this feast of the Holy Family? I think you want me to see the poverty and vulnerability. I think you want me to recognize the violence that surrounded your entry into this world. Children died because of the threat to temporal power that you posed. And I think you want me to recognize your solidarity with all things human and with the things of this earth. All are grace touched through your coming. And all relationships are transformed.

This feast is not just an opportunity for your followers to ponder three unique people as my parents might have thought. Rather I wonder if you do not want us to recognize that the bonds that unite the holy three are the very bonds that unite all people and make us all family? I have Islamic, Jewish, and every other designation of people as brothers and sisters. Through you God lives in human flesh. Humankind have been divinized in that forever wedding. And I think you want us in the midst of our celebration, as we gather around the family table and break the Bread and share the Cup, I think you want us to go with the Eucharist we celebrate and be that for others. If we understand the mystery we have to be willing to be broken and poured out. We must be vulnerable servants as you are.

I stand in awe of these implications. How can I be comfortable in the warmth and security of my home as I sit to a heavily-laden table, how can I feast while my brothers and sisters are ravaged, while they starve? How can I exploit natural resources and gloat in the excess while my brothers and sisters can barely eke out survival? It is not enough to stand in awe. I think you want me to adore the Presence and assume responsibility for the family.

Sincerely,

Didymus