HOLY FAMILY

Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  I can only wonder at what it was like, their prayer life, their daily work, and the love that they shared.  It must have been pretty amazing, but I would also assume in many ways it was quite regular as well.  I am sure there was something magical about it, but just like everyone else they had to work, do their chores, and simply just work at being a family.  I am sure there were moments of worry, concern, and even frustration.

We all know that the Holy family was holy, we have depictions, art work, icons, statues, and every other form of art telling us this, and they truly were holy for Jesus was full of grace and Truth, Mary was Immaculate and Joseph a good and righteous man.  Nevertheless they were not without suffering, worry or concern as all of us are from time to time.

What does this model of the Holy Family mean for our families?  Obviously we are to imitate the Holy Family as much as we possibly can.  However, our families also have concerns, worries, and even suffering.  We can go even further; our families have problems, be they small or great.  Many times we will hide our problems from others, we keep our dirty laundry to ourselves, because God forbid someone finds out my teenage daughter is pregnant, or my son is divorced and has remarried outside of the Church with no annulment and continues to receive the sacraments, or my father is an alcoholic, or my sister addicted to drugs.  No family is exempt from problems, some may not be so severe, but problems nevertheless.

What is the answer to these problems?  The answer is perseverance and prayer.  St. Paul calls us fighters fighting the good fight, he knew life was not easy, sometimes far from it, and fighters get knocked down but a good fighter will try to get up each and every time, I often pray that I will be a strong fighter, for I too have been knocked down, harder than some and some harder than me.  A holy family continues to get up.  Families will try to stay together, for the most part, even with severe problems, they try to stick it out, but sometimes a family falls apart because it is dealing with a hurt that they think cannot be healed and it usually centers on forgiveness or the feeling of why God allowed something terrible to happen to us.

St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians writes, “. . . bear(ing) with one another and forgive(ing) one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.”

How many times do we hear of family squabbles that get out of control and before you know it brother stops talking to brother, daughter stops talking to mother, father abandons family, and all the rest?  Most of the times not being able to forgive deals with betrayal.  Someone has betrayed me, broke trust, or given up on me and the hurt that – that brings is sometimes too much and causes a break between blood, marriage or friendships.  We just find it impossible to forgive.

Feeling abandoned by God is also a heavy cross and people will sometimes feel this in the passing of a loved one or the ending of a marriage.  How did Mary and Joseph feel when they were basically on the run trying to find a house so that Mary could deliver Jesus?  How did they feel when they lost him in Jerusalem for three days?  How did Mary feel when Simeon said her son would be the rise and down fall of many and that a sword would pierce her heart or when she actually walked the way of the Cross and saw her Son crucified?  How did she feel?  We can probably guess, but one thing is for certain she never doubted God’s love.  Mary and Joseph were not exempt from life’s suffering, neither are we, but if we want to be truly like them we will continue to be persons who believe and live the resurrection even in the midst of life’s difficulties, it’s what holy people do, it’s what makes us a Holy Family, to love equally both in moments of joy and of hardships.  God bless you and Happy Feast Day!