FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY – YEAR A
“Live Transformed Lives”
(Sirach 3:2-6; Ps 128; Col 3:12-21; Mt 2:13-15; 19-23)
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There is a clear message from the readings for today’s feast of the Holy Family: all of us are to live lives that are transformed by Jesus Christ.
The transformation takes place within the experience of God’s unconditional love made flesh through the annunciation; the birth of Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit of the Risen Lord at Pentecost. It is there that the fledgling church, the early disciples gathered around Mary, were transformed from a fearful group hiding behind locked doors, into the confident evangelists boldly proclaiming the Good News to all to hear.
It is that same unconditional love and the same gift of the Spirit of the Risen Lord given to us that is meant to transform us, our personalities, our actions, our innermost being, more and more into the likeness of Christ. Each year, as the liturgical seasons unfold, we are invited to grow in maturity as disciples of Jesus, allowing ourselves to be grasped at ever more profound depths of our being, the great mysteries that we celebrate.
In the first two readings we are told how a whole family might be transformed. First, Ben Sirach or the book of Ecclesiastes asks that children allow themselves to be transformed into ever more respectful children who will honour and obey their parents. They are to care for their parents in their old age, as they would want to be cared for themselves. Actually, for the author, caring for parents is a social justice issue – as he puts it, there will be a house raised in justice for those who do so.
The practice of “Granny Flats” addresses this issue. It was floated as a possibility in some of the larger cities. However, the First Nations peoples in northern Saskatchewan have had a version of that for ages. Often, one will see a small cottage in the backyard of a First Nations home. That is where a grandparent lives, close to the family to allow interaction, visiting and caring such as meals brought over, yet apart enough to allow both the grandparent and the family privacy and space to live their lives comfortably. Certainly, should a residence for elders be the choice taken, then the family should visit regularly, so that the elder is not forgotten or neglected.
There is a little story about this invitation for children to care for their parents. The parents of one family were impatient with the father as he aged and began to spill food and make a mess at the table. They finally placed him in a corner where he would eat by himself. One day the father saw his son carving on some wood. When asked what he was doing, the little boy replied that he was carving out a bowl for the father and mother to use when they got old. The father and mother were taken aback at this. That night, the grandfather was at the family table again, and no mention was made of the mess he made.
St Paul, for his part in his letter to the Colossians, is very forthright when it comes to how a transformed family of believers should look like. Husbands are to love their wives, we know from other passages, as they do their own bodies. Wives are to defer to their husbands. In the end, their relationship should be one of mutual deference out of love for each other.
For their part, children are to respect their parents by especially loving and obeying them. At the same time, parents, and especially fathers, are to avoid driving their children to resentment, as can happen when parents are too strict and demanding.
Paul precedes his advice for the family by some very beautiful and general comments addressed to all believers. We are God’s chosen ones, he states, and as such we must have compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. We must love one and especially forgive each other from the heart, as the Father has forgiven us. All this should be undergirded with gratitude, expressed through psalms and spiritual songs.
Turning to the Gospel, we hear the familiar story of the flight into Egypt, the exile there for we do not know how long until Herod is dead, and the fear they had upon their return that the son of Herod would do as his father had done, so they were displaced to Nazareth. Even as a child, Jesus experienced the suffering of a displaced person, the plight of the poor at the hands of the rich and powerful; an exiled person, along with his family. Such was the extent of the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, that this family could be numbered among the hundreds and thousands of families suffering in this world to this day.
The Eucharist that we celebrate now is our family meal; a meal that gathers us around the Word, and nourishes us with the Body and Blood of Jesus. We are then transformed into that Mystical Body of Jesus, sent out into the world to spread the Good News of our God become one of us to help us become more like him.
