THE FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14

Colossians 3:12-21

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Dear Jesus,

The Sunday that falls between the feasts of Christmas and New Year’s is dedicated to the celebration of The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  It’s a feast fraught with difficulties, isn’t it?  I wonder what it is that we are celebrating.  What is the challenge that we are supposed to meet?  What is the conversion that you want the hearts of the Assembly to experience?

It would be easy to have a sentimental, albeit a maudlin time imagining romantic crèches with hovering angels and adoring shepherds and Magi.  We’re quick to combine Luke’s tradition and Matthew’s.  Depictions of the Holy Family are always serene.  I laughed at one rendering in bronze I saw in a church.  There was Joseph in the carpenter’s shop, your Mother looking in from the doorway, and you, as a teenager, making crosses from pieces of wood you took from the floor.  What parents would be pleased to watch their child molding implements of execution? 

But if we pay attention, there is nothing sentimental in these readings.  Violence and rejection lurk in every line of the gospel and societal conventions are challenged in the other readings.  If we wallow in sentimentality nothing will happen.  We won’t squirm.  We won’t hear you calling us to reform.  We’ll miss the social gospel that is being proclaimed, the gospel that is society’s challenge and hope.

The Scriptures are the living word of God.  We make a mistake if we listen and only look back.  The proclamations touch the now.  They are meant to confront our present situation and us.  In the end, this feast isn’t an opportunity to experience a day in the life of your family, but to hear how the powerful can oppress the little ones, the poor, the vulnerable and see this as a very real and present evil.  And to recognize that there is one family of which we all are a part.  The poor and the vulnerable are our brothers and sisters.  And God means us to live in community and love.

The fourth commandment of the Decalogue demands that children honor their parents.  Shouldn’t that be a matter of doing what comes naturally?  Will a commandment make a difference to one who does not have innate gratitude and respect for the ones who are the source of his/her life, to the ones who nurtured him/her from birth to maturity?  Of course all this assumes right relationships, doesn’t it?  Am I correct in thinking that the honor commanded is due for more than simple engendering?  Everyone deserves basic respect.  But the commanded reverence and honor is for more than giving birth.  It may not always be the birth parents that are the nurturers, but the father and mother are the ones who adopt the child and raise him/her as their own and the ones who step in and make up for what birth parents might lack in parenting skills and/or interest.

You know that there are problems with the second reading from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians.  Dare I say that the first part of the reading is fine and ought to be proclaimed often as a guide for how people ought to live in relationships including familial but also beyond that, in relationships in the faith community that is church, and beyond that, in relationships with our brothers and sisters at large?  We are urged as God’s beloved ones, to put on compassion.  Doesn’t that mean that we ought to be willing to suffer with the suffering the way you did and not be embarrassed by their plight?  Shouldn’t compassion be normative in a faith community?  These in the church are our brothers and sisters in you.  I read what I have written to you and wonder if I can do this.  I listen to the litany of virtues that Paul urges me to put on and I wonder if I can be that vulnerable.  Where will my defenses be?  Kind, humble, gentle, and patient – I think I can only be all these for others if I am able to admit my own sins, shortcomings, and weaknesses and admit that in all humility I will need the kindness, gentleness and patience of my brothers and sisters in Christ as I ask them to bear with me.

See how these Christians love one another.  Apparently that was a frequent observation by those outside the early church.  Is it true that the desire to experience that love was the driving force for many who sought to become converts?  Does the church today have the reputation for being lavish in forgiveness?  Am I a good forgiver?  We will be, I will be, if we remember that we are a community of sinners who have been forgiven.  Shouldn’t we be challenged to reflect our God who is lavish in mercy and forgiveness by having the reputation for being good at forgiving and reconciling?  Maybe I will do a better job at that if I never forget the joy I feel in being reconciled and forgiven.

All I have written above challenges me.  Then, you might ask, why did I there were problems with this second reading?  Certainly the problem is not with Paul’s admonition: whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  The problem I have is with Paul’s urging wives to be subordinate to their husbands.  Subordination is wrong where ever it occurs.  There is no place for it in the church.  You modeled service for us.  I stand in your midst as one who serves.  You washed your disciples’ feet.  As I have done for you so ought you to do for one another.  But that is not subordination.  It is mutuality of service.  Isn’t it true that to the degree that wives are subordinate to their husbands, husbands ought to be subordinate to their wives?  Or better, where is their room for subordination at all since the two have become one flesh in you?  Paul obviously was acknowledging the attitudes of his day.  Women had no legal standing on their own then.  At least Paul urged love.  But wouldn’t it be wrong to use this text today as a justification for subservience?  Love is the challenge.

It’s a good thing the reading stops where it does.  Otherwise, how would we deal with the seeming endorsement of slavery?  I don’t think many use the text to support that horrid institution.  Nor should they use his preceding paragraph to justify the wife’s subordination to the husband.

It is good that we have this feast of the Holy Family each year.  Help me to recognize that as I gather with my brothers and sisters around your table, it is as equals that we gather, and as the forgiven that we celebrate and give thanks.

Sincerely,

Didymus