We belong to two families, a natural and supernatural family

Homily for Holy Family Year C 2015-2016

Sirach 3:2-6,12-14; Colossians 3:12-21; Luke 2:41-52

Introduction

In most African communities, the concept of family is very fluid.  For example:

·        Your father's brothers, are not called "uncles," but simply "fathers."

·        Your mother's sisters, are also not called "aunts," but are your mothers too.

·        And their children are not cousins, but are your brothers and sisters.

And so, one has other brothers and sisters, other fathers and mothers, who you have to treat exactly as you would, your real parents and siblings.  Now if you thought having one mother nagging you all the time was bad, imagine what it is like having seven mothers behind you all the time!

Jesus too seems to be in a similar situation of having, not just one father, Joseph, but another father, the heavenly Father.  Although he was the Son of God and so belonged to the supernatural family of the Trinity, Jesus also belonged to the human family of Joseph and Mary.

Scripture and Theology

Sometimes we forget that the Holy Family was a natural family of father, mother and child. Perhaps it is because some paintings and holy cards of the Holy Family depict them in a super-pious and unrealistic way.  But Joseph, Mary and Jesus were real human beings, living in a real family with all its joys and its difficulties.  That Jesus was sinless, that Mary did not have original sin and that Joseph is a saint, did not protect them from the struggles of family life.

That is why in the gospel, when Jesus remains behind at the Temple in Jerusalem, Mary scolds the twelve-year old saying: “Son, why have you done this to us?  Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”  Is this not what you would say to your child, when he runs away from you at the Mall or at some park?  Just like any mother and father, Mary and Joseph were anxious and worried about their son.

Even the way Jesus responds to Mary should be familiar to any mother with a teenager.  “Why were you looking for me?" Jesus asks.  "Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  That doesn't sound like an apology, does it?  Jesus doesn't apologize for going off on his own without telling his parents, perhaps causing even more distress to his mother.  But unlike your typical teenager, Jesus has a good reason for his action; he was attending to the business of his Father, his other Father, his heavenly Father.

And yet his membership in the heavenly family did not absolve Jesus from his family obligations.  That is why we heard that eventually: "He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; . . . And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man."  In other words, Jesus as a son needed his family, to grow in his humanity and in his faith.

·        His mama had taught him how to walk, how to speak and how to say "please" and "thank you."

·        The teenage Jesus probably worked with his dad in the carpentry workshop and learned from him how to be a man.

·        Jesus had to learn how to read and especially how to read the Scriptures and to pray, so that when he left home, he knew the Jewish Bible well and he knew his Jewish faith well.

And so, Jesus takes seriously his obligations to both his families, the natural and the supernatural, listening to and obeying both his earthly and heavenly parents.  And when by virtue of our baptism Jesus invites us into his supernatural family, as his brothers and sisters, he asks us to be equally committed to both families.

Christian Life

That is why the Church is a strong promoter of the family.  We Christians must take our natural families very seriously, in whatever form they come.  Most of us are fortunate to belong to a family with a father and a mother, the unit in which God intended children to be raised, life to be lived.  Others, especially widows and orphans, the separated and divorced, the single and strangers, have to make do with a different kind of family.  Whatever family we have, like the Holy Family was for Jesus, our family is the school of learning the faith and living out our Christian life as the Catechism teaches us.  "Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life” (CCC 1657).

As the saying goes, charity begins at home.  Fulfilling our family responsibilities is the first way to live and grow as Christians.  In the family, husbands and fathers fulfill their roles, wives and mothers play their part, and like Jesus, children advance "in wisdom and age and favor before God and man."

But although charity begins at home, it must not end there.  The heavenly family to which the Lord has invited us includes more than mom, dad and children and siblings; it is like the African family.  

On this Holy Family Sunday, Pope Francis has asked the Church to celebrate the Jubilee of mercy for Families.  He wants families to use this occasion to rediscover that their vocation and mission includes stepping out of our small family circles. to extend our understanding of family.  In his own words, he wants families "to go out, to cross the thresholds of our doors and to meet the whole of society, to meet all people, 'especially poor people in order to be able to give to them the strength of brotherhood and solidarity, in order to transform our society into a real family of peoples.'"

This Pope's request is actually quite reasonable.  If we call Jesus our brother, we must then call his other brothers and sisters, our brothers and sisters too; if we call God our Father, we must then call his other children our brothers and sisters.

Let me offer a few ways in which we can experience not only our family life but also the supernatural family of God.

1.    My presence among you is already shows that we belong to this supernatural family.  We don't share any blood kinship and yet at Mass several times, I call you "brothers and sisters."  And even outside Mass, some of you consider me your brother and some your son.  In my seven years here in New Orleans, I have never felt like an orphan.  On Christmas day I was invited to so many families for lunch, that I had to stagger them two hours apart.  My mom should not worry about me being fed and being kept on the straight path; for among you I have many other mothers to do that.

2.    I also know that many of you have taken in other vagrants like myself.  Sometimes you take cousins, nephews, nieces, parents, siblings and friends who are down on their luck and expand your family.  But you don't have to live with someone to make them a part of your wider family; just treating them as if they were your brother or sister in Christ is sufficient.

3.    One of the families with whom I had Christmas dinner have an adopted daughter.  What better way to be pro-life and at the same time extend your family than by giving a home and family to a child by adoption or foster-parenting, like Mary and Joseph opened their home to the child Jesus.

Conclusion

And so our families are called to live this year of mercy in two main ways.

·        Let us be more committed to the obligations of our natural families and bring reconciliation there if some healing is needed.

·        But let us also bring that mercy and love beyond the thresholds of our homes, to include God's wider family of the Church and of the world.

For when at last we get to heaven, membership in our natural family will cease to matter and we shall all belong to that wider family of God's Kingdom, where we shall all be brothers and sisters, for we shall all live with One Father.