B Cycle – Feast of the Holy Family 23

LK. 22:40

Can the Holy Family offer us anything we can model in our own families? After all Mary was conceived without original sin, Joseph was a saint, and they were raising a child who was God incarnate.  How can we, knowing our own failings, believe we have anything in common with Joseph and Mary except our humanity?  Joseph and Mary were human but, in our minds, they were superior in their holiness.  Yet the depiction of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the Chosen series revealed their humanity in a way we can identify with. 

In fact, in the Chosen, they seemed normal, and that depiction upsets some people who feel it demeans each of them.  Did the humanity they exhibited change who they were?  How can being human diminish anything about the Holy Family?  We know Jesus was fully human, and it was because of His humanity many of the religious leaders rejected Him.  “Isn’t this the son of the carpenter” they asked.

The scriptures tell us, Jesus grew up obedient to Joseph and Mary.  We can easily believe Jesus played with other children. He would have been taught by His parents to read and write.  We just do not think of the early life of Jesus.  But the scriptures tell us He deemed equality with God nothing to be grasped at but aside His divinity to become flesh and blood.  Jesus did not just take on the appearance of humans but became human.  An infant without the ability to feed Himself, change Himself, grasp any object other than the finger of His parent, clothe Himself.  He was totally and completely dependent and vulnerable.  His growth as a human was exactly like ours and He became a complex being with emotions, thoughts, desires, needs, and wants. 

God could have sent Jesus to earth fully grown but instead He chose to have Jesus experience every aspect of what it means to be human.  Dependency on parents as an infant. Learning from parents not only how to read and write but to think, reason and challenge others’ opinions and demands. All the while respectful and learning values critical to family life.  He would have witnessed His parents and that of His friends sacrificing for their children. He would have, like other children, not be aware of some of the sacrifices parents make for their children.  Just as children today are unaware of how much parents sacrifice.  Those sacrifices are just to provide food, shelter, and protection. 

Jesus would have learned to speak the same way all infants learn to speak – by listening to their parents speak and sing to them. We learn motor skills by their playing with us, by encouraging us to take those first few steps before falling. 

We learn to take other steps to grow in our confidence.  Risking ridicule from others because parents give us confidence in our own abilities and a confident assurance in what we are doing. At the same time, children pick up habits, mannerisms, attitudes, and values from parents as Jesus did.  Without realizing it children pick up more than genes dictating hair and eye color. More than physical attributes come from their parents. They learn from family experiences, values, morality and find their destiny in this world.  Parents begin to understand this reality of their impact on their children the instant they become parents. 

That reality is a lesson we all can learn from the Holy Family, and it is why God set it up this way.  We learn to love and forgive within the marriage and within the family.  We learn to give of ourselves and seek to do what is best for the family unit not for ourselves.  We learn each child is uniquely made and gifted and is to be cherished and nurtured as they grow. That includes correcting them when necessary.

What we fail to express until later in life is how to honor our parents for the sacrifices, they made so we can become who we are.  Those sacrifices are often unseen by their children and are done in a way that children cannot know it cost their parents something  That is the nature of a sacrifice, it is often done without fanfare, without a word because it is done out of love. 

Yes, I realize not all families are not functional and are often dysfunctional. There are parents that abandon their children or are so self-centered they fail in their duties as parents.  It is not easy to give parents honor and respect when they have failed their children but that does not mean we can ignore the fourth commandment given to Moses, “to honor your father and mother.’  We do that because God wants us to do for our children what our parents did not do for us.  God can heal those wounds caused by a parent’s failure or their inability to love us the way we needed to be loved.  ‘

Not all parents can be like Mary and Joseph. In fact, it is impossible to be like them, but we are equipped to love deeply and to give of ourselves completely.  We can learn from family experience to forgive.  After all Jesus did tell us “…unless we forgive others we will not be forgiven.”  Learning to forgive is a hallmark of a healthy family.  All families experience conflict, and all conflict can lead to deep hurt.  Forgiveness is the remedy to that hurt. It is a necessary component of family life and growth. 

If you believe your family has failed, you – forgive them.  If you do not believe they have failed, you look again because you are overlooking their humanity. They are not Mary or Joseph and they have failed you.  If you are a parent, seek forgiveness from God for the many ways you have inadvertently failed your children.  We are after all flawed humans and as flawed humans we cannot love perfectly.   

If you are beginning a family seek God’s wisdom and seek from God all you need to make your family a Holy Family.