[Deacon Mick is at it again. This is his homily from the Feast of the Holy Family. As always, you can catch the livestream at www.facebook.com/stpatsak/]
This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family.
There was a 98 year old Grandfather from Ireland who was dying. The family gathered around his bed trying to make his last journey comfortable. They gave him some warm milk to drink but he refused. Then one of the his sons, remembering a bottle of Irish whiskey received as a gift the previous Christmas, took the glass back to the kitchen, he poured a generous amount of the whiskey into the warm milk. Returning to his Grandfathers’s bed, he held the glass to his grandfathers lips. Grandfather drank a little, then a little more and before they knew it, he had drunk the whole glass down to the last drop. “Grandfather,” the family asked with earnest, “please give us some wisdom before you die.”
Grandfather raised himself up in bed and with a smiling but pious look on his face said, “Whatever you do, don’t sell that cow!
Well as I said, today we celebrate Holy Family Sunday
and it’s an opportunity for us
to reflect on family life, our family’s life.
On December 8th, the Holy Father declared this year
dedicated to St. Joseph — who is the patron of families,
Fathers, expectant mothers and the Universal Church.
You see, family life
is something we had in common with Jesus,
something Jesus shared with us,
and, like Jesus,
we are all profoundly influenced by our families.
We are most deeply shaped, mentally, emotionally,
and spiritually by the people in our families
and by family events
such as births, deaths, marriages and illness.
The family is the most important community
to which we will ever belong.
Our readings today
emphasize three points about the family,
first – the family as a bridge,
second – as a factory
and third – as a living cell.
SO! Let’s explore those points——
The first reading from the Old Testament Book of Sirach
speaks about human life
as connected across generations.
We have responsibilities and relationships
with the generations before us as well as those after us.
In our modern world,
we hear a great deal about
our responsibility to the future generations
but what about our responsibility to those
who have gone before us:
to respect and care for our parents
as they become older, weaker, more easily distracted.
Sirach writes,
“My son, take care of your father (and I will add “and mother”)
when he is old; grieve him not as long as he lives.
Even if his mind fail,
be considerate of him;
revile him not all the days of his life;
kindness to a father will not be forgotten…”
While we think about our responsibilities to the next generation,
we need to remember the generation that preceded us.
We are to be instruments
of Christ’s care and love to them as well.
The family is a community in which
one generation cares for another.
That’s the wisdom of Sirach for us on this Holy Family Sunday —
the family is a bridge that
connects generation to generation to generation.
Second – The family is also a spiritual community,
a community of faith.
St. Paul writes to the Colossians in today’s second reading
about the virtues that hold a church or family together:
patience, forgiveness, and joint prayer.
It would be nice to say that
with our Baptism,
the whole of Christian life sort of unfolds automatically.
But it doesn’t happen that way.
None of us is on a spiritual auto pilot.
We need to learn what it means to be a Christian.
We need to learn how to pray,
how to be patient,
how to reconcile,
how to be bridge-builders.
The family is where those lessons about life are started.
The family is the factory of love.
Now, in my lifetime
I’ve worked in factories
and factories are not neat and clean places.
and families are a little like that as well.
They are not always neat and clean places because
growing-up and growing in the Lord
are not parts of a neat and tidy process.
The family is where
we start to learn the virtues of patience,
responsibility, cooperation,
self-discipline, self-control
and dealing with authority.
The family,
that first Christian community to which we belong,
is really the beta test site,
the testing-ground for how deep our discipleship really is.
It’s a real factory of faith where
the rough edges get smoothed,
where shape and structure come into our lives,
where we start to learn what it means to follow Christ
and just how far ———- we may have yet to go.
The family is a community where
we can learn to grow in Jesus Christ.
That’s the wisdom of St. Paul on this Holy Family Sunday,
the family as a factory of faith.
Lastly, in the Gospel,
we have Mary and Joseph
bringing Jesus to the Temple for Passover.
By rituals such as this,
they are joining their family to the their larger family of Judaism.
When people come to Church as a family,
they are joining their family
to the larger family life of the Catholic Church.
Here, in Church,
we come to see the Church’s mission as our mission,
to see the Church’s concerns as our concerns.
Each family is a living cell of the huge Body of Christ.
That’s part of the wisdom of this Gospel scene for us of the
Holy Family coming to the Temple together.
The family that prays together grows, unites and stays together.
The family is the living cell of the larger Church.
My brothers & sisters — Today, we lift all our families
including our Church family
to the Lord in prayer
to ask for healing, grace, and strength because
family life is not easy today in this world in which we live.
During this year dedicated to St. Joseph – Patron of Families
and especially on this Holy Family Sunday ——
we have a chance not simply to reflect on family life in general,
but to make a decision
on how we can strengthen our own family’s life in the coming year,
on how to make it a stronger bridge that connects generations,
on how to make it a more effective factory of faith,
and on how to make it a vital, living cell of the Body of Christ.
I leave you with one simple suggestion,
in this year dedicated to St. Joseph
there is a powerful opportunity to gain a plenary indulgence.
Take advantage of this great gift
AND do it —— as a family.