Word to the Wise
Sunday, December 29, 2024 - The Holy Family - C (optional; new)
[opt: 1 Sam 1:20-22, 24-28; opt: 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24; Luke 2:41-52]See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. And so we are....Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. [1 John] "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]
The location in Nazareth that tradition has designated as the original home of the Holy Family is pretty simple in itself, but there is a huge church built over it with a large opening in the floor for pilgrims to gaze down upon the interior of the house. This may be a parable on what "tradition" can do to something very simple! The Holy Family lived as 1st century Palestinian families did. The chain of identity and loyalty was family-clan-tribe. That circle could be pretty tight and families could "overlap" like a neighborhood with lots of cousins in and out of each others' homes. But, if a child was an "only child" and a son, the future of the family, especially the parents, could be precarious. The assumption that Jesus was "among their relatives and acquaintances" would have been normal, but when noses were counted, his disappearance would have been very alarming! But the evangelist Luke was making a point that discipleship, not kinship, would be the determination of one's relationship to Jesus.
The First Letter of John, in the first scripture for today (Cycle C), refers to believers as "children of God." St. Paul uses the term "by adoption." What I find comfort in is the thought that if I went missing, God is going to come looking for me with "great anxiety." Parent-child relationships in Jesus' day could be just as complicated as they are now. And one should not impose a "Little House on the Prairie" vision on the Holy Family, like that huge church on top of their home. The mystery of the Incarnation means Jesus was born to a family and lived with the same complicated relationships that any child of his time had to live with. He was "one like us in all things but sin!" [4th Eucharistic Prayer]. On the feast of the Holy Family, we can have the assurance that God's love can heal and strengthen all family relationships if we let it happen. AMEN