Growing Together in Love

HOMILY FOR THE HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH

SCRIPTURE READING:
1 Sam. 1:20-22.24-28 or Sir. 3:2-6.12-14
Ps. 84:2-3.5-6.9-10.11 (R. 5a) or Ps. 128:1-2.3.4-5
1 Jn. 3:1-2.21-24 or Col. 3:12-21
Accl; Acts 16:14b
Luke 2:41-52.

Preamble:

Dear friends please repeat these words after me;
Lord Jesus, I give you my mind, help me understand.
Lord Jesus, I give you my ears, help me hear your voice.
Lord Jesus, I give you my heart, help me welcome you.
Holy Spirit, rekindle in me the fire of your love. Amen.

Beloved in Christ, this day, the church is asking us to reflect anew on the virtues and life of the Holy family of Nazareth-Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The church is asking us to reflect on the Holy Family of Nazareth so that we may renew ourselves and our families-learn to ask the family of Nazareth to help heal the wounds which have been created with the presence of lack of forgiveness, malice, hatred, reservations, retaliation and revenge.

The family today suffers from both internal and external wounds and the most hurtful are the ones caused by individual members of the family where brothers and sisters are at war with each other over material possessions and struggles for power. But we need to learn from the family of Nazareth how they lived.

The gospel account of today taken from Luke 2:41-52 reveals to us in a most dramatic way how issues of conflicts, clash of interests and quest for individual search for freedom were greeted with a deep sense of understanding by Mary.

For peace to reign in the family, there must be love (sacrificial love) and understanding-we cannot be talking about love if there is no understanding. it is understanding that creates the enabling environment for growth even when one’s interests conflicts with the general interest of the rest of the family members.

Two days ago precisely on Thursday 24th of December, we discussed on one of the members of the family of Nazareth-Mary. We told us that without the cooperation of Mary there wouldn’t have been an “et incarnatus est”…and he was made man. Maybe God would have sought other means but God sought to enter human history anew with the profound yes he would get from Mary at the invitation to be the mother of God.

Her profound yes “Let it be done to me according to your word” brought about the entrance of God into human history thereby making himself a member of the human family-a member of the Divine family (the Most Blessed Trinity) now becomes a member of the human family in order to restore what has been torn down by the presence of “sin” and “hatred” and introduce once more “friendship with man”, “love for man, love of man for his fellow man” and “glory for man.”

He did this in the most simplest of all form-“humility and solidarity.”

In his humility he became one like us not in sin but in all things so that the sons of men might become sons of God. To teach us as it were, the way of God. The way of God is Love. The family today can only survive if there is sacrificial love.

The individual members of the family of Nazareth had specific mission to fulfill with respect to the salvation history of man but love and understanding was at its peak such that they remain for us a shining light and example. Mary treasured everything in her heart…(Lk 2:50,51) Joseph had to be the foster father of Jesus, and Jesus was to die for us. The parents of Jesus went on pilgrimage every year to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. Jesus’ family was devout: they observed the Law.

In some portrayals of the figure of Jesus, the emphasis is placed almost exclusively on the radical aspects, on Jesus’ challenge to false piety. Thus Jesus is presented as a liberal or revolutionary.

It is true that in his mission as Son, Jesus did introduce a new phase in man’s relationship to God, opening up a new dimension of human intimacy with God. But this was not an attack on Israel’s piety. Jesus’ freedom is not the freedom of the liberal. It is the freedom of the son, and thus the freedom of the truly devout person.

As Son, Jesus brings a new freedom: not the freedom of someone with no obligations, but the freedom of someone totally united with the father’s will, someone who helps mankind to attain the freedom of inner oneness with God. So we see in Jesus not as one who came to abolish the law but to complete it. Mt. 5:17.

The Torah laid down that every Israelite was to make an appearance in the Temple for the three great feasts-Passover, feast of weeks (Pentecost) and feast of Tabernacles (ex. 23:17;34:23f.; Deut. 16:16f). The question whether women were also obliged to make this pilgrimage was a matter of debate between the schools of Shammai and Hillel. As for boys, the obligation applied to them once they had completed their thirteenth year. But it is also laid down that they were to accustom themselves gradually to the commandments

 One way of doing this was to make a pilgrimage at the age of twelve. The fact that Mary and Jesus also took part in the pilgrimage once again demonstrates the piety of Jesus’ family-the family of Nazareth.

There is the deeper meaning of the pilgrimage: by going up to the Temple three times a year, Israel remains, as it were, God’s pilgrimage people, always journeying toward its God and receiving its identity and unity increasingly from the encounter with God in the one Temple. The Holy Family takes its place within this great pilgrim community on its way to the Temple and to God.

On the Journey Home, something unexpected happens. Jesus does not travel with the others, but stays behind in Jerusalem. His parents become aware of this only at the end of the first day’s journey. For them it was evidently quite normal to assume that Jesus was somewhere among the group of pilgrims.
Luke uses the word synodia-“pilgrim community,” the technical term for the traveling caravan.

This was surprising to two members of holy family but it illustrates very beautifully that in the holy family, freedom and obedience were combined in a healthy manner. The twelve-year-old was free to spend time with friends and children of his own age, and to remain in their company during the journey. Naturally, his parents expected to see him when evening came but they did not.

Two things are involved here, for Jesus-it points to his mission while for his parents this was the start of days filled with fear and anxiety. According to the evangelist, it was only after three days that they found Jesus again in the Temple, where he was sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. (cf. Lk 2:46).

The three days in which Mary and Joseph set out to find Jesus is symbolic of the paschal mystery of Jesus. It speaks about the silent reference to the three days between the cross and resurrection.

These are days spent suffering the absence of Jesus, days of darkness, whose heaviness can be sensed in the mother’s words: child why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously” (Lk 2:48).

Thus an arc extends from this first Passover of Jesus to his last, the Passover of the cross. This also points our attention to the sword of sorrow Simeon spoke of at the presentation. The closer one comes to Jesus, the more one is drawn into the mystery of his passion.

Jesus’ reply to his mother’s question is astounding. How so? You were looking for me? Did you not know where a child must be? That he must be in his father’s house, literally “in the things of the father” (Lk 2:49)? Jesus tells his parents: I am in the very place where I belong-with the Father, in his house.

Two things are worthy of note in this reply; 1. Mary said: “your father and I have been looking for you anxiously,” Jesus corrects her: I am with my father. My father is not Joseph, but another-God himself. It is to him that I belong, and here I am with him. Could Jesus’ divine sonship be presented anymore closely?
2. Jesus uses the word “must,” and he acts in accordance with what must be.

The son, the child, must be with his father. The Greek word dei which Luke uses here, reappears in the Gospels whenever mention is made of Jesus’ readiness to submit to God’s will. He must suffer greatly, be rejected, be killed, and rise again, as he says to his disciples after Peter’s confession (Mk 8:31).

He is already bound by the “must” at this early hour: he must be with the Father, and so it becomes clear that what might seem like disobedience or inappropriate freedom through his parents is in reality the actual expression of his filial obedience.

He is in the Temple not as a rebel against his parents, but precisely as the obedient one, acting out the same obedience that leads to the cross and the resurrection.

The reaction of Mary and Joseph to Jesus’ words with the two statements is that they not understand the saying which he spoke to them, and his mother kept all these things in her heart.” Lk 2:50, 51. Mary does not understand Jesus, but she keeps it in her heart-here we notice the journey faith of Mary through the mystery that lay before her thus she becomes for us a perfect example of a great believer also as the image of the church which keeps God’s word in her heart and passes it on to others.

The passage concludes with “then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them…and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man Lk 2:51.” After the scene of Jesus’ higher obedience, he returns to his normal family situation-to the lowliness of the simple life and obedience toward his earthly parents.

Obedience to the will of God is paramount-God created the family in order to further the cause of creation. This is the only way peace is to reign in the family. We must be aware always that the Christian family is constituted by God.

It is not merely the man and the woman who come together to make the family, but it is the lord who brings them together and so they are to seek to obey the will of the lord. mary said to the angel Gabriel:

“Let it be done to me according to your will,” and ever since she did nothing but obey the Lord with thanks, praise and reflection in her heart.

Joseph carried our every command that was given to him without speaking a word of doubt or objection.

Love for every member of the family is key if the family is to wax strong and be able to overcome the crisis of our world today. Love becomes a powerful statement to override the individualistic and materialistic tendencies of our society today.

The individual members of the family must not seek personal interests at the expense of others but seek to carry others along, journeying through life’s challenges together and coming up with solutions that would offer hope to the rest of the world.

Prayer: the family is first school of prayer; it is only through prayer can we surmount the crisis of our world today. May we learn to pray always and at the same time practice forgiveness for it creates room for growth. Mary practiced this even when the child Jesus acted in a way that was contrary to their expectation, there was no vulgar word rather there was mild correction.

May the lord in his mercy lead us to encounter each other anew in our respective families in the name of Jesus.