what makes a family holy?

Homily

3rd Day in the Octave of Christmas

Solemnity of the Holy Family

27 December 2020

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +JMJ +m 

Father, are you seeing your family for Christmas?  It's the #1 question I get at Christmas.  Not are you holding Jesus in your heart, but are you seeing family?

It's actually the perfect Christmas question.  The question is written right into the Church's liturgy, the second of four critical stops in the twelve days of Christmas.  Today is the Solemnity of the Holy Family during Christmas.  Father, are you seeing your family for Christmas?

Thankfully I did see my family.  I know many didn't, or couldn't because of death or distance.  Isn't everyone tired of that word distance?  Bye bye 2020!  It was a gift to be close to my widowed dad and five siblings.  My crew is far from idyllic, but I pray we haven't give up on being holy.  Everyone is making a go of it, taking a bite out of life, and trying to do it together.

That's what makes a family holy.  It's the risk of faith.  It's not settling or quitting when it all turns out harder than we thought.  It's about keeping faith when we lose control, and conflict, suffering and sacrifice become the heart of family life.  For our families are the crucibles where love is tested and learned and purified.  They are the privileged places where great stories are written, and the ultimate consequences of our lives are played out.

It was this way for Jesus.  He didn't drop into the world as an individual.  He was born into a family.  A very sinful and dysfunctional one, if you look at his ancestors besides his parents.  His was certainly the most non-traditional family the world has ever seen.  There's no need to sentimentalize or idealize the Holy Family.  I'm sure Nazareth was a quiet, peaceful place.  The world is converted most intimately and fully by the conversation that takes place at an ordinary dinner table.  Yet Nazareth was not a bubble insulated from the harsh realities of real life.  Mary and Joseph were at times refugees fleeing murderous threats.  At other times, they were setting off amber alerts.

Like Abraham the father of our family of faith, they had to trust in the unbelievable, ridiculous calling that required the total risk of faith.  That's it, the risk of faith.  It's that, not sentimental idealism, that makes a family holy.

Too many of us have given up on families because it's so hard, and the risk so great.  There is a temptation to choose something easier, rather than surrender to the vocation, sacrament and mission of the family.  Yes, it would be much easier to redefine family as those individuals that I as an individual choose to affirm my choices in life.  Yet if we make family only a choice based on the convenience of adults, we will continue to avoid God, and fear and kill children.

Yet this is not reality.  It's not our nature.  It's not the makings of a great story.  No, we were all dropped into a family, like it or not.  Ultimate meaning and relationship run through the family.  Our families is where our freedom and destiny are gifted and play themselves out.  God Himself is a family.  He is not a collection of individuals. That's capitalism.  He is not a machine of parts.  That's communism.  God is not capitalist or communist.  He is family, and so are we, created in His image.

By all means, if your family is abusive or toxic or disobedient to God's will, detach from that.  Don't get stuck in a family.  Yet to give up altogether on family is to give up on ourselves.  Family is who we are.  What makes a family holy is that we do not stop taking the risk of faith.   Yet at the heart of family life is suffering and sacrifice.  So what!  We are not made for lives of comfort, but for lives of great consequence.

John Paul II says the future of the world runs through the family.  Mother Teresa said if you want to change the world, go home and love your family!  Blood will always be thicker than water.  God invites us into His family, and asks us never to give up on family, through the gift of His own blood.

Father, are you seeing your family for Christmas?  It's a great Christmas question. Yes, and I'm praying that Jesus will show His face to my family this Christmas, and renew our embracing the vocation, sacrament and mission that is family life.  I pray that my family will be holy and keep making the risk of faith.