In My mother’s people tell the story of my grandmother after Mass one Sunday morning in the early ‘50s. In a rare period of time when all her children were old enough that she was able to get to church (somewhere after child #7 of what would be 10), she accompanied her brood to St Vincent’s parish. Not surprising to anyone who brings children to Mass, her wee ones were—shall I say—especially “challenging” that day.
While my grandmother was putting coats on my mother and her siblings—sometimes for a second time—one of the priests, seeing her obvious frustration, approached her and tried to offer some support by saying:
“Ah, Mrs Patton, consider the Holy Family.”
To which she replied dismissively, “Sure, them and their one.”
It was a response born of the exhaustion that often comes with family life. But it was also one which revealed a comfort and, if I may use the word, familiarity, that my grandmother had with both the priest and Joseph’s family. My grandmother loved them all—and so she told it like she saw it.
I think about this story every year when we, as a Church, celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Observed squarely in the middle of the Christmas season, the solemnity reminds us that the Divine Word Who became “flesh” did so in a family. Moreover, they can, and do, serve as a model for the rest of us as we navigate life within our families, especially at that moment when the effects of cookies and candy and lots of time spent on top of each other are making themselves known..
My grandmother’s response to her priest is telling…in that moment she voiced a sentiment many of us might have: the thought that given who the Holy Family are, they stand outside of our experience—Mary was sinless, Joseph was spoken to (albeit in a dream) by God, and Jesus was….well…Jesus—and, therefore, we can’t really relate to them.
But we can.
While the Holy Family raised the Son of God—a feat none of us will accomplish—we have within our families children who have been made in God’s image and in baptism have been raised to the dignity of His adopted sons and daughters. If we are not the sinless Mother of God, we would do well to remember that she was conceived without sin and sustained in that state only because she was radically open to working with God’s grace—and that His grace is offered to all of us. If we think that God doesn’t speak to us the way He spoke to Joseph, perhaps we just aren’t listening.
Moreover, it’s easy to forget that while the problems faced by the Holy Family may not have been the same ones we face, they certainly had their share of challenges: giving birth in a stable, fleeing to another country to save their Baby’s life, watching Him being framed and executed, just to name a few.
And there is something about the Gospel reading for the day (of Jesus wandering from His parents on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem when He was 12) that strikes me. I can’t help but hear in Jesus’s response to His Mother when she asked “Why have you done this to us?” the dismissive, smart-alecky tone of the tweens which makes them at that stage such delightful parts of family life. He was after all, as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews and the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer reminds us, “Like us in all things but sin.”
And because He was like us, Jesus needed to learn to be an adult. As is true for all of us, it was His parents who were His first—and greatest—teachers. Should we be surprised that in the Garden of Gethsemane, when faced with the greatest challenge of His life, Jesus said “yes” to His Father’s will? He learned that from His Mother who said “yes” in her garden three decades before. Should we be surprised that manhood for Jesus meant strength and confidence, but also compassion and sensitivity? Joseph—a “righteous man”—was unwilling to expose Mary to “shame” (read “stoning to death for adultery”) (Mt 1:19), initially preferring to divorce her quietly before coming to believe the seemingly impossible in his young bride. That, and his prayerful openness to God, was what Joseph modeled for his Son.
The Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family to remind us that as members of our own families, we are to live—and love—in that way: to be models of devotion to the Lord for each other.
And it reminds us of how crucial family life is.
Since the beginnings of the Christian faith the family has been described as the “domestic Church.” The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church noted that it was the core unit of the Faith—not the individual, and not the parish. Concerning the domestic Church, the Catechism teaches that
…It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way "...by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity.” Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment.” Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life. (#1657)
Like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Christian families are called to “the witness of a ‘holy’ life.” To be “holy” in Catholic theology, literally means to “be set apart”—to live lives of “charity,” “prayer,” and “self-denial.” Being called to holiness doesn’t mean we will always live those attributes perfectly, and so it requires “generous”—and I love the realistic assessment here—with “even repeated” forgiveness. There is no place where this is more true than in the family! That we are called to holiness means that we “offer [our] life” for others.
We do that when we wake up to colicky babies at 3 am. We do that when we go shopping for dinner—and then prepare the meal our children may or may not appreciate. We do that when we help our children with their homework after a long day of work…and when we care for aging parents.
As Christians we have been chosen, graced, and set apart to love—and it is with our spouses, our children, and/or our siblings that we best learn and witness to this call. So whether ours is composed of two or twelve people, like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, each of us is a part of a holy family.
A.M.D.G. / B.V.M.H.