A Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Prince of Peace Catholic Church – 4:00 Mass
Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; Colossians 3:12-21 or 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52
Merry Christmas! On this Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph we are given an opportunity to reflect on our relationships, especially our family relationships. While many of us have been blessed to have had wonderful family experiences, many others have had great difficulties in their families. So many in our world today suffer from the effects of a dysfunctional family.
Even those of us who have had a wonderful family life have experienced pain and suffering within our families. Suffering is part of the human condition that none of us can avoid.
In today’s gospel reading we are given a glimpse into the suffering Mary and Joseph experienced in their family life. Is there anything worse for a parent than losing a child, even for a few minutes, but especially for a few days or, perhaps, experiencing the death of a child. Those of you here today who have lost a child can attest to the incredible pain and suffering this brings about. If the most perfect family experienced suffering in their family, we should not be surprised when we do.
As the Mother of the Church, Mary has many, many children. It matters to her even when we are lost for three minutes, and even more for three days, because everything in the lives of her children matters to a mother. We can ask Mary to intercede for us when our children stray or are taken from us. She’s been there, she knows the pain we are experiencing.
When God lets us suffer, as he let Mary suffer for those three days, we naturally ask him why he did that. Mary did the same thing. When she found Jesus, she asked him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
And his reply to her is also his reply to us when we ask him the same question: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
In other words, didn’t you know that my Father is perfect, and his providential plan for your life is perfect, including the very suffering you are now going through? Did you not know that the whole world is my Father’s house, my Father’s kingdom? Did you not know that he makes all things work together for good, even terrible things, for those who love him?
We Christians do know this, we know it by faith. Faith is a KNOWING, whether or not it is accompanied by the FEELING of assurance. We can have faith, and still experience the often overwhelming grief that accompanies the loss of a loved one or some other profound loss.
As an aside, we should never think it is consoling to tell someone who is suffering that “God brings good out of evil.” It is not a consolation at that time and this truth can only be understood later after the sting of their grief is less sharp. It is something they must discover when the time is right. While someone is grieving we must simply be there for them, consoling them by our presence and willingness to help in whatever way we can.
Our faith, our knowledge, that God brings good out of suffering DOES NOT make the suffering disappear. But it DOES make it meaningful, something like the pains of childbirth. By faith and hope a mother giving birth knows that the pain will pass and she will soon be holding her newborn in her arms. This anticipation is so precious that it more than makes up for the very real pains of labor.
And so it is with our faith. Christ came into the world NOT to make our sufferings disappear but to make them appear differently, to make them appear as they are — as meaningful, as powerful, as something precious, as something like the pains of childbirth.
Like childbirth, if we suffer in faith, hope, and love, trusting in God as our loving heavenly Father, then the child that is born as a result of this suffering is ourselves, OUR FUTURE SELVES, our NEW AND BETTER selves, our STRONGER selves, our HOLIER selves, our MORE FAITHFUL and FAITH-FILLED selves.
I’m sure we can all remember some suffering in our past that at the time it was happening we didn’t feel was helpful in any way; something that didn’t feel like childbirth, but more like death. However, with the benefit of hindsight, we now can look back on this time and say, truly, it made us STRONGER, and BETTER, and WISER, more HUMBLE and more COURAGEOUS.
Mary must have felt exactly that way years later when she remembered these three days of suffering from the loss of her son, not to mention the humiliating death of her Son on the cross. In fact, the text itself in today’s gospel suggests this when it says she “kept all these things in her heart.”
We too can learn from our past, especially our past sufferings, even those sufferings that were the result of our own faults, our own sins. We too should ponder these things in our heart.
With all of this in mind, let’s thank God today for our families, even if they are not perfect. Even if they continue to cause us pain or discomfort. Let’s be grateful for our faith in the truth that God makes all things work together for good for those who love him, especially as we look back on the times we’ve suffered much and realize how he was at work even in these difficult times.
May this realization be our strength as we continue to endure the inevitable sufferings life brings our way. God bless you.