The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) and the Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Despite the commercialism of the Christmas season, the universal instinct of people at the heart of the mystery of Christmas is giving and receiving gifts. Life becomes hopeful with a present of love like that of all who attended our Christmas Masses where we sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. I am certain the heavens rang out with joy as they watched children dressed like angels—halos, wings, shepherds, barn animals, Josephs and Marys. The beauty of children among us and with joy-filled abandon is that we are to remember we are children also in the eyes and love of God. For our hearts are restless until we receive love and give love fulfilled in the Proclamation of the Birth of God into time:
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory: the glory of an only Son coming from the Father filled with enduring love.”
God’s enduring gift of love is the beginning of salvation history for us in the birth of Jesus the Christ. It is the story of how much God loves us— choosing to be born into our history—born into humanity with its messy parts and all. Nevertheless, problems begin for us when we reject the gift—perhaps we do not believe that God could inhabit us. We greatly need Christmas to be reminded of how loved we are—what a gift we are to one another and to God.
However, when we begin to understand that being a Christian involves claims on our lives we receive the ultimate message of Christmas for us. We then strive to make the reality of Christmas known to others so they too will hunger for Christ’s presence in their lives. It is reciprocity once we accept His presence within us. That presence is demonstrated when we forget what we have done for other people and remember what other people have done for us. That presence reminds us to see others just as real as we are and to look beyond the surface of race, culture, human boundaries and stereotypes. We see into hearts of others as Christ does sees into our hearts; hungry for joy and love and the gift of having our lives matter. We see all people as children of God. Christmas is a reminder that our whole existence, like that of God born like us, is to see what we can gift to life.
We are the gift of the Word of God spoken who is Jesus Christ when we proclaim him in the way that we live. We speak the name of Jesus for comfort for healing forgiveness, love, and compassion. God chose us to carry on as Christ the Word in the world. Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we become the witness of Christ’s continued Christmas daily. We are extending the Christmas Season of the family. All the sights, sounds of carols, all the best of baking comes out, old family heritage, recipes, and decorations emerge. Families try to visit one another, enduring great traffic—airports, train and bus stations–trying to come home. Why? For most of us, no other place, no other people in our lives have had as much influence in making us who we are. Family life and history have formed us into how we behave with others beyond family. For many of us our family history has been filled with pain and joy, sorrow and happiness, alienation and reconciliation, opportunity upon opportunity that God has given us to respond to the call of how we live out who we are in our family life. With most, there is no place else, no other relationships, it all begins at home.
Family life is sacred –where children should experience God’s love from the love that surrounds them in their family. There values in Christian living and faith begin. And what is learned continues in a cycle to the next generation of family life—and beyond. There are good and bad traditions as we know.
God’s grace is revealed in both joyful experiences as well as strained and painful memories. How we pass those experiences and behaviors on is how we can use God’s grace or ignore it. Family dynamics are mostly learned not inherited in our nature. The pain we suffer from others can cripple us, or that same pain may become sacred grace from which to grow—not easy, but definitely possible if we turn to God for that help to grow. Perhaps, most difficult of all is to give family members that have wounded us, also the chance to grow.
God also speaks to us through our family culture, our faith heritage, and in all parts of life. Culture and family history should be a source of pride, a richness of heritage. Whether ancestors arrived on the Mayflower or recently arrived from Mexico—a major contributing ingredient of our sacred human formation is God’s richness of diversity. Until we embrace God’s diverse creative plan there will be no peace—no holy family.
The Holidays can be anything but a feeling of holy joy for those estranged from their families, and we pray daily for those who are alone and do our best to reach out to them. However, there is also the sense of a faith family here in our parish welcome that says, “We belong here”.
Oneness is expressed in our reading from the Book of Sirach for the Holy Family Solemnity. It describes healthy life-giving ingredients in the parent-child, familial relationship as honor, reverence, and kindness. These are holy nutrients. These valuable ingredients form our humanity. Honor, reverence, and kindness like charity, should begin at home—seeing ourselves as holy in the eyes of God and in the presence of each other.
St. John tells us that vision of holiness in one another must come from the love God placed in creating all of us as one family: Beloved: see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. And so we are, and his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded.
Being thankful in certain family dynamics is not always easy. However, parents are the source of how thankful children can be if they remember they are sacred guardians of a treasure from God. While that is not always easy, it is a holy duty. Just as we learn in our Gospel from Luke for this Sunday, Joseph fulfilled his role as guardian of the Holy Family—keeping sacred his commitment to witness his faith by the way that he loved Mary and Jesus. We hear the concern any father would have for his child who took off on his own. We experience Mary’s anguish since her son is now striving to breakout on his own. Jesus does rejoin his earthly family out of honor and love.
Fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers all have that sacred commission to witness faith by the way we love one another. For when we stand before the Lord, and the Holy Family, and are asked how we responded to God’s call to love and to make an account of our lives, I believe one question God will ask is “did you respond to my call to love in your family—and all of the family I created?”