Sunday the 31st of December 2023 - The Holy Family

Genesis 15:1-6,21:1-3/ Psalm 104(105)/ Hebrews 11:8,11-12,17-19/ Luke 2:22-40

Today the Church invites us to consider Mary, Joseph and Jesus as a model family setting an example for us to follow. In fact, we know very little about the early life of Jesus but there are clues to his family life in the snippets of scripture we have but mostly in how Jesus grew to maturity becoming the man we know him to be. God chose to become fully human in the person of Jesus. He took no short cuts and submitted himself to the limitations of the physical world that he had created. This is an awesome thing to ponder, that God, creator of all things, was conceived in the womb of Mary, one of his own creations, developed as any human embryo develops, was born, lived, suffered, and died as a human being before rising to take his place on his thrown in heaven.

We might expect that if God chose to become human he would be born into great power, riches, and comfort but no, he was born into homeless poverty and exile. Worse still God was conceived in the womb of a young unmarried girl who could well have been stoned to death but who was accepted into marriage by the carpenter Joseph who willingly took on the task of stepfather to Mary’s child. We can assume that Joseph taught Jesus his trade of carpentry and that the family prayed together as any Jewish family would be expected to do.

In keeping with the laws of their faith Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple as recounted in the Gospel today. In this way Jesus entered the temple as the long-promised Messiah although this would not have been apparent to anyone unless they had been given some divine insight. Two such people were there to greet Jesus, Simeon, and Anna, both elderly and both devout Jews. Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the ‘Christ of the Lord’, and he was prompted to be in the temple that day. Anna, a widow who had devoted herself to prayer and fasting, also recognised something special about Jesus. The encounter between Simeon, Anna and the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph represent the fulfilment of the old covenant by the coming of the new one in the person of Jesus.

The words said by Simeon have passed into everyday use and are proclaimed every day during the Night Prayer of the Church. Simeon, servant of the Lord, can now go in peace because he has seen the salvation that God had promised his people. This salvation was then passed on to the people of Israel, the chosen people of God, but is also passed to all people, described as ‘a light to enlighten the pagans’. The awe and wonder that Mary and Joseph must have felt at the greetings of Simeon and Anna was tempered by the warning given that Jesus would be the cause of the fall as well as the rising of many in Israel, being a sign that is rejected, and that a sword would pierce Mary’s soul. We see down the years and today in our own times that Jesus is still rejected by many. The sword that pierced Mary’s soul must have been her witnessing his suffering and death, horrific for any mother to see.

The way God chose to enter his own creation was by fully engaging in the human state with all its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows, its triumphs, and failures. We truly have a God that fully understands what it is to be human living under the burden caused by original sin. Sin that entered the world because of the free choice we are given either to follow God and his invitation to unity with him in heaven or to reject him and go our own way. The joy that the gift of life brings us does not exclude the possibility of suffering during that life and we will all have to go through the doorway of physical death.

The Holy Family might not be typical of the make up of our own family, but they teach us much about what family life should consist of. A family should be built on love, respect, dedication, and worship. It is said that the family that prays together stays together and there is plenty of evidence to support this saying. The scriptures show us the model of how family life should be founded and developed. The world today does not follow this guidance and consequently the family unit may not be founded on the God given principals handed down to us. We see the destruction and failure of the family unit. Children instead of being seen as precious gifts from God, are considered as a commodity, a right, that can be supplied on demand regardless of the circumstances they are expected to be brought up in. We see broken homes, single parent families, child abuse in many forms, parents with addictions, children neglected and left to their own devices. Increasingly the state dictates how children should be cared for, what they should be brought up to believe and how they should be educated. These are all issues that through our faith are proper to the family ensuring that the values exhibited by the Holy Family are not discarded but embedded in society.

Our faith gives us a responsibility to build a solid family life ensuring our children are loved, motivated, disciplined, and educated by parents who are dedicated to faith and social values. This family responsibility covers more than the bringing up of children, it includes care for the sick, elderly and dying. Embarking on married life should not be done lightly, it means taking on a great responsibility not only for the husband and wife, but also any children that may be gifted to them but also to our wider society. The joys are many but there may also be sorrows as well. A strong family unit will be best placed to deal with whatever challenges life presents them with. The family home is the first and best school of faith.

God Bless Brendan.