I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, with time to celebrate with family and friends. As usual, I joined my brother, Will, and his family for Christmas and, like Simeon who took Jesus into his arms, I was blessed to hold my latest great niece, Whitney, once again. It was so precious to see her, now two months old. I’ll be baptizing her here next Saturday; what a privilege that will be! This is a very sacred time of the year as we reflect on the great mystery of the incarnation: God taking on human nature and coming to live among us. Jesus is truly the Word of God made flesh. He took on flesh as we all do – within a family. And, as we hear in today’s gospel account, since he was the first-born son – we believe, the only child – of Mary and Joseph, he was brought to the Temple to be consecrated to the Lord. And so, we get one of a very few glimpses into the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph during Jesus’ childhood. The only other one that Sacred Scripture provides us is when he was twelve years old and he accompanied his parents on their journey to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. In both of these accounts, we hear of the fidelity of this family to their beliefs and religious customs. These beliefs and customs were, I’m sure, very important for them as they tried to understand and accept God’s will for them.
Throughout Sacred Scripture, we read about families struggling to understand and accept God’s will for them. In our first two readings, for example, we hear of Abraham – the father of our faith – and his wife Sarah. They put their faith in God as they were called to leave their homeland and set out to a new land in response to God’s call. They also put their faith in God when he promised them a child in their old age. Abraham even put his faith in God when he told Abraham to sacrifice his son; what a mighty test of faith that was. We are all beneficiaries of their faith in God and are called to trust in God as they did.
And, like Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and Mary, we will sometimes find that our faith will cause us great pain and anguish. We may ask God – or even demand from him – some sort of explanation and feel great frustration when it doesn’t come when we want it or the answer is not what we want to hear. It is then that we can turn to the Bible to hear how our ancestors in the faith became part of God’s plan for salvation as they put their trust in God. I like to call the Bible God’s family album, because like any family album, the stories in the Bible give us snapshots that tell us about the family of faith that God established through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and then entered as he sent his Son to be part of the family of Mary and Joseph.
And, God did not just take on human form in the person of Jesus, but entered into every aspect of human life except sin, engaging in the full human experience of family life. As we heard in today’s gospel account, Jesus “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.” So it is for most of us. It is usually in our family where we are introduced to God and our faith life is nourished and strengthened. You who are parents know the great privilege and responsibility you have to pass on your faith to your children. Our parish is nothing more than a family of families; the Church is nothing more than a family of faith made up of faithful families.
We can all benefit from reflecting on the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and on our families, seeing how we are all called to share our faith and strengthen each other in our faith lives. Each of our families is called to be holy families, too, as the hand of God, our heavenly Father, works through us in fulfilling his plan for each of us and all of us – eternal union with him and all his faithful family in heaven!