Word to the Wise
Sunday, December 27, 2009 - The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
[1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28; 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24; Luke 2:41-52]"Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety." And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. [Luke]
Although the words quoted above are familiar to us from hearing this gospel passage many times over the years at Mass or in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, they should be familiar to us from our own experiences as teen or parent! The teen has a personal agenda related to growing independence. The parents have the agenda of keeping the teen safe in the family. It's part of the normal dynamic of family life. Although this particular incident has its theological purpose in the Lukan infancy narrative, I think the use of it on the feast of the Holy Family calls our attention to the physical, emotional, spiritual and social significance of the family. That significance is in great danger in our times and in our particular secular American culture. Love doesn't occur in a vacuum. We must learn how to give and receive love. The first school of love for us is the family, and the most lasting lessons about love are learned there very early in life. If the family is severely dysfunctional for any number of reasons, the lessons of love may not take place and the subsequent consequences can be hard ones. However, even when there is no severe personal dysfunction involved, the surrounding culture may be a source of erosion. Studies are showing that "average" families do not sit down to a meal together anymore. They seem to function as a collection of individuals instead of a single reality, and the role of that collection is to create more a spirit of individualism instead of a spirit of love. Jesus was born to a tribe, clan and family. The statement by his mother indicates that the bond of love was important, especially since he was an only child! Whatever theological significance may be present in this dramatic incident, there remains that family reality. The family is the first way we learn to "put skin on love." An identity of a person as an individual has some importance, but if that identity is simply focused on reinforcing that individuality, it will be extremely difficult to love someone else because love requires us to consider someone else's welfare as equal to or even more important than one's own! We cannot project modern American family problems onto the Middle Eastern family dynamic of Jesus' time (and even now), but we can take a moment or more on this feast to consider our own family experience and how it did or did not help us to learn to love. If we want to love as Jesus teaches us, we must start where we are and ask ourselves some profound questions - some of them disturbing! We will have to start with our family and begin to look for one another with great anxiety! AMEN
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