Holy Families Face Challenges Too
HOMILY FOR HOLY FAMILY SUNDAY– 29 DECEMBER 2024
Many years ago when I was looking after my niece, Catherine, when she was about 3 years old, I was with her in Woolworths in a big shopping mall in Somerset West. In what felt like an instant, she disappeared. I’m sure I don’t have to try and convince you of the terror that overcame me in that moment, and for a few minutes afterwards, while I searched for her. You know how those racks of hanging clothes make it nearly impossible to see a 3-year-old child.
She, as I found out, was playing hide-and-seek, as she often did when I would visit her home, and I would have to go looking for her. There in Woolworths, she wasn’t lost at all, from her perspective; she knew exactly where she was. I know I don’t have to go into too much detail about the relief I felt when I eventually found her. We can just imagine what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph frantically searching for Jesus and eventually finding him. There are good parallels between this story and our Gospel passage today. From his perspective, Jesus wasn’t lost at all. He knew exactly where he was and what he was about.
It’s interesting that the Church gives us this Gospel passage for our celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family in this year C of the cycle. Perhaps the reason for this is that it shows us the holy family in action, it’s a snapshot of their life, and there is also a referring the ultimate purpose of all families, that is to bring us to the Father’s house, to bring us into the great family of God.
The first reading for this Mass from the first book of Samuel, gives us a picture of another holy family, this one more than 1000 years before that of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. In fact, St Luke seems to want us to keep this family in mind while he is describing the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. There are many parallels between Hannah and Mary. Both had sons who became priest-prophets and saviours for their people. Hannah is a Hebrew name which means “grace” and she foreshadows Mary, the woman who will be full of grace. Twice St Luke refers to Jesus as increasing in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man. The first book of Samuel uses the same words for Samuel. There is another particular parallel to the Gospel: in both narratives, the young boy-prophet is brought to Israel’s Temple sanctuary and remains there.
On this feast day when we pray for our families, let’s admit that there are no perfect families out there. Among us here, we have represented just about every difficulty there is when it comes to family life. Every family has it struggles and challenges. Every family has its share of brokenness and woundedness. Some families have all the appearance of being perfect nuclear families, mother and father and children. Things seem absolutely ideal. Many of us, however, come from single-parent families, broken families, divorced and remarried families, some of us live alone as adults, some are unmarried, some live in families formed out of friendship and comradeship, some have been adopted into families. And the reality is that all families, even “so-called” perfect families, face financial difficulties, fighting and tension, substance abuse, unemployment, sickness, and bereavement.
Even so, there is a longing for family in us all, a longing for connectedness and belonging. We instinctively know the importance of family life, even though it is often imperfect. You will also be aware of the effort that it takes to create and sustain family life. We face difficulties and challenges to holding our families together. Human life is beautiful and also messy, and human families are likewise joyous and messy. This feast that we celebrate today is to encourage you in this work of building and sustaining family life, despite the challenges you face.
A few days ago we celebrated the great Solemnity of Christmas. In these days directly following we are trying to come to terms with the great saga of the Incarnation - the scandalous goodness of the God, who is the Almighty Creator, taking on human flesh, and becoming a defenceless, vulnerable baby. This beautiful mystery deepens today as we celebrate that not only did the Son of God become human, but he became incarnated into a human family.
The liturgical feast of the Holy Family is not such an old one in the Church’s history. Devotion to the Holy Family only really became a reality at the time of the Industrial Age and the birth of cities around 200 years ago. At this time serious problems began to appear on the family horizon. To counter these problems, the Church proposed the Holy Family as a model for Christian families. The modern pressures on the family are no less challenging, and this feast is as relevant to us now as it was at the beginning of the 19th Century. You could even say that the family is under much greater threat and danger in our time.
So, what does this Feast of the Holy Family have to do with us? Why are we holding this Holy Family up as a model of how our families are meant to be. How are we supposed to identify with the Holy Family? It may seem difficult to relate your family life to the life of this rather extraordinary family. After all we are talking about a saintly woman specially chosen by God, about a holy man who received messages from angels in dreams, and about a child who was divine as well as human.
Well, what makes us able to relate to this Holy Family, extraordinary as they were, is the challenges and difficulties they faced and the way that they met these challenges and faced these difficulties. The Gospels gives us an insight into the challenges and difficulties they encountered. Remember we are talking about an unmarried mother, about a birth in a stable together with farm animals, about a family forced to flee for their lives, or at least the life of their son, about a family who were refugees, about a family that did not speak the new country's language. They knew what it was to deal with poverty, uncertainty, and sudden changes. They were not exempt from the harshness and sufferings of life.
It is not in their perfection as a unit consisting of father, mother, and child, that they are presented to us, but rather in the love they had for each other, how faithful they were to each other, and the way in which they faced the challenges and knocks of daily life, trusting in the providence of God.
This is a Holy Family many of you can identify with. We are called to be holy families, to create families, to live in loving relationships with important others. Even if we don’t fit into the category of the perfect ideal nuclear family, all of us are called to create family in the situations in which we find ourselves. We are called to establish good relationships with special people in our lives. Jesus became a member of a human family to reveal God’s plan for our families and to teach us the importance of families.
See the generosity of Hannah. She experiences God’s generosity toward herself in giving her a son, and she in turn, responds by giving her son to God. We see this same Mary, who, having received Jesus from God, gives her life to supporting his mission. Our children are ultimately gifts from God, given to us not to simply please us, but given to us to be cared for on God’s behalf and ultimately offered for his service.
So, the Gospel today gives us a snapshot of life in the Holy Family and Jesus’ place and obedience within it. His obedience to his earthly parents flows directly from his obedience to the will of his heavenly Father. Jesus, in the first words he speaks in Luke’s Gospel, points us beyond earthly family relationships, showing us that our human families lead us to the Fatherhood of God. Our human families help us to become holy and direct us to look toward being the family of God.
