The School of Nazareth

Homily for Holy Family Year B 2014-2015

Sirach 3:2-7, 12-14; Psalm 128:1-5; Colossians 3:12-21; Gospel: Luke 2:22-40

Introduction

In the creed, which we will recite in a few minutes, we say that we believe that Jesus was born of Mary and became man.  And that belief is what we are celebrating since Christmas Eve and the Twelve days that follow.

To help us confirm our belief in the humanity of Jesus, today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family.  Yes, Jesus not only was born to Mary like all babies are born of a woman, but also as a human baby he was raised in a family, the Holy Family of Joseph and Mary.  Family is such an important human institution and if our Lord is truly human, he had to be part of a family.

For example, most people spent Christmas Day with family.  But since my family is back in Uganda, I spent Christmas Day with families of friends and I had the advantage of hopping from one home to another.

·        At about 1.00pm I joined a friend’s large Vietnamese family for lunch – she is one of 12 children and most of them were there, with their own children and a few grandchildren and of course their elderly mother.  I think there were about 100 children there, running up and down and generally having a great time with each other.  I enjoyed the food of course, but the highlight of my visit was watching the family play “Dirty Santa” and doing so with great passion and pleasure.

·        Three hours later my next stop was a Caucasian family. I arrived just in time for dessert and the opening of Christmas gifts.  This was a smaller family, the grandparents (my friends), three of their four children and four grandchildren.  I gladly shared in the joy of everyone as they received their gifts, even grandpa who received three coffee mugs.

·        My last stop at about 6pm was at the home of my African-American friends for dinner.  A family of several sisters, their children and grandchildren, they had enough food to feed a football team.  I chose to eat some gumbo.  But the mood there was a little sad as one sister had an adult son in hospital.  As a family we prayed for him and for them.

And so, in their different circumstances, in their different ethnic cultures, for these three Catholic families, the family is the linchpin of their lives.

Scripture and Theology

God did not want his Son to miss out on what family has to offer.  Although the gospels do not tell us much about Jesus’ early life, there are a few hints.

In today’s gospel story, we hear that his parents treated him like any other little baby, taking him to the temple as was required for every first born son.  They carried out the usual rituals at temple as required by the Law of Moses, sacrificing “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,” and not sheep or goats, since they were a poor family.  Not even God’s Son was exempt from the required religious rituals for babies.

In the gospel we heard that while carrying out these rituals at temple, Joseph and Mary met two prophets, Simeon and Anna..  If Joseph and Mary were expecting to sneak in and out of the temple with minimum fuss, that was not to be.  Simeon and Anna outed them, and let the cat out of the bag, revealing to all that this baby of theirs, was going to be something great; he was going to be the Saviour of Israel.

But the last lines of today’s gospel passage are perhaps the most telling.  We heard that when the family returned to Nazareth, “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”  Yes, Jesus continued to grow physically, intellectually and spiritually in the family.

Sometimes we think that Jesus, being God and all, had an easy time; but actually that is not the case.  His mama had to teach him how to walk, how to speak and even potty-trained him.  The teenage Jesus probably worked with his dad in the carpentry workshop and learned from him all those manly values.  Jesus had to learn how to read and especially how to read the Scriptures, which apparently he got to know very well; for later in his ministry he was quoting the Bible left and right.  Jesus learnt the Jewish faith and prayers from his parents who took him to the local synagogue at Nazareth and once a year took him to the temple in Jerusalem.  On one occasion when he was twelve, in those troublesome teenage years, they accidentally left him behind.  The Bible tells us that at the home in Nazareth Jesus was "obedient" to his parents and there he "increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man."

If God used the human body of Mary as the vehicle for bringing his Son into the world, he used the human family of Joseph and Mary for raising Jesus into the man who would begin his ministry thirty years later. If we believe that Jesus is true man and true God, we have also to believe that he shared in family life like we all do.

Christian Life

And so, I would like us to take three things for ourselves from today’s feast of the Holy Family.

First, like his family was for Jesus the centre of learning the faith and his vocation, our families must be the same.  That is why the family is often called the domestic Church.  The family is the place where we learn and grow in our faith and where parents promote the vocation of each child accordingly, whether to the priesthood, to the religious life or to married life and other states of life.

Secondly, apart from being a place of learning, we must remember that our family is also a place of living out our Christian life.  The Catechism tells us that it is in the family “that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way.”  They do this "by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity."  And so “the home is the first school of Christian life and ‘a school for human enrichment.’ 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).

Thirdly and finally, let us remember those who lack family, often not because of their own fault, especially widows and orphans, the separated and divorced, the single and strangers.  We who have the blessing and privilege of having a family, where we learn and where we live our let us extend our love and care to others. Nobody in this world should be without family.  If they lack a natural family, “the Church is a home and family for everyone, especially those who 'labor and are heavy laden'" (CCC 1658).  Let us support them with our prayers, with our resources, even with our love – such as inviting them into our family.

Conclusion

The Holy Family was the place Jesus learned to be a gentleman and a man of faith; it was also the place where he first lived out fully his humanity and his faith in God.

May our families be the same for us, that is a domestic Church where we learn our faith and the school of Christian Life where we live out our faith.

And the more our families are these things, the more they too are holy families like the Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus.