Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Holy Family

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass

    The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass

    Today’s readings
    Mass for the children:

    Once upon a time, there was an old shepherd named Elias.  He had been a shepherd for his whole life long, just like his father, and his father’s father.  Being a shepherd was hard and lonely work.  He took care of a large group of sheep and did his best to protect them from wolves and keep them together.  He would lead them by day from pasture to pasture, allowing them to graze, and bring them safely to market where they would give their wool for people to use.

    Nights could be very lonely and sometimes scary.  There was no one else to talk to, and he did his best to keep the sheep safe.  Sometimes, if he listened hard enough, he could imagine the wind talking to him as it blew through the trees.  That made him feel like he wasn’t so alone.

    One night, as he was nearing the place where he and the sheep would spend the night, he saw a bright light up in the distance.  He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on so he moved toward it. When he got close enough, he got the sheep settled down for the night and he went to check out the light and make sure there was nothing to worry about.

    Other shepherds had done the same thing, and they all arrived to see the angel of the Lord, surrounded by the bright light of God’s glory.  It was frightening to see, and Elias and the others just stood there, awe-struck, not knowing what to think.

    Then the angel spoke to them.  He said, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

    Then the sky grew really bright as hundreds of angels joined in and began to sing: “Glory to God in the highest!  And on earth, peace to those on whom is favor rests!”

    When the angels left, Elias and the other shepherds decided to travel the short distance to Bethlehem, the city of David, and to search out the Savior that the angel talked about.  Bethlehem was a pretty small village, and so it didn’t take much looking to find the baby.

    He was in a manger – a feed-trough for animals.  His parents looked like ordinary people, but Elias knew that this baby was special, and that the family was holy.  The angel was right: there was joy and peace here, it was a special feeling that Elias knew could only come from God’s blessing.

    Elias never forgot that night.  He went about taking care of his sheep, but whenever he was in town, he would try to find out about the baby he saw that night.  He found out the boy’s name was Jesus, and he would often hear of wonderful things that Jesus said and did.  When he was very old, Elias heard that people had turned against Jesus and they nailed him to a cross.  But he also heard that three days later, he rose from the dead, and all of his friends were now starting to go out and tell the Good News about him.

    Elias knew that Jesus was special from that very first night he saw him.  He knew that Jesus had come to change everything.  And he was right.  Got changed everything then, and he continues to change everything now, if we let him.  Jesus didn’t just get born two thousand years ago; Jesus is born right here, right now for us, if we would just make a little space, a little manger for him in our hearts.  Just as Elias didn’t know exactly what God had in store for Jesus, we don’t know what God has in store for any of us in the year ahead.  But we do know this: God sent Jesus so that He could be here among us, and he is here among us now, leading us back to him, telling us that we are his special children, and loving us all with love beyond anything we can imagine.

    Things were hard for Elias and the other shepherds, and for Jesus and his family, and sometimes things will be hard for us too.  But all along the way, there are angels, guiding us to where God wants us, watching over us, shining the light, and helping us to find the Good News.  Today, God brings us here to worship, so that like those shepherds, we can find Jesus again, and we can see Jesus in those who love us, and in our own hearts.

  • The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

    The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

    Today’s readings

    It’s certainly appropriate that we celebrate the Holy Family today, just a few days after Christmas.  This feast helps to underscore that Jesus came to live among us in a very ordinary way: by taking flesh and becoming one of us, even to being part of a family.  So we look on the manger scenes that still are on display here in church and in our homes, and we see Jesus, Mary and Joseph beginning their lives together.  We  still sing Christmas carols that extol the peace of his coming.

    Our thoughts about that beautiful family might run along the lines of “how nice for them!”  I’m aware that some families who are here today may have just managed to get here on time, or a little after.  Maybe there was the constant argument with the kids about why they have to go to church.  Or maybe someone wasn’t quite ready on time.  It might have been hard to turn off the television or tear someone away from whatever it was they just got for Christmas.  And so, as they hustle in here to church and sit down, maybe the holiness of the family is, perhaps, the furthest thing from their minds.

    So it can be hard to relate, I think, to the Holy Family in some ways.  Maybe you’re thinking, “How do I get one of those?” There are all sorts of families out there: families broken by divorce or separation, families marked by emotional or physical abuse, families fractured by living a great distance apart, families grieving the loss of loved ones or agonizing over the illness of one of the members, families of great means and those touched by poverty, homelessness and hunger, families divided by immigration issues, families torn by family secrets, grudges and age-old hurts. Some are trying to form a family: they want to have children, but are unable.  There are healthy families and hurting families, and every one of them is graced by good and touched by some kind of sadness at some point in their history.

    Even the Holy Family, whose feast we celebrate today, was marked with challenges. An unexpected – and almost inexplicable – pregnancy marked the days before the couple was officially wed; news of the child’s birth touched chords of jealousy and hatred in the hearts of the nation’s leaders and caused the young family to have to flee for their lives and safety. Even this Holy Family was saddened, in some ways, by an extremely rocky beginning.

    The institution of the family is an extremely precarious thing. We know this. God knows this. Yet it was into this flawed structure that the God of all the earth chose to come into our world. Taking our flesh and joining a human family, Christ came to be Emmanuel, God with us, and sanctify the whole world by his most merciful coming.

    St. Paul exhorts us all to be marked by holiness, part of the family of God. We do this, he tells us, by showing one another “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.” Living in a family, living the Christian life, requires sacrifice. Some days we don’t feel very compassionate, but we are still called to be that way. We might not feel like showing someone kindness, or patience, or being humble. But that’s what disciples do. But the real sticking point is that whole forgiveness thing. Because all of us are going to fail in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience at one time or another. So just as the Lord has forgiven us, so many times and of so many things, so must we forgive one another. We live our whole lives trying to figure out how to do this.

    Even today’s Gospel portrays for us the challenges of the family.  The Gospel event, if it played out today, would be an Amber Alert!  Jesus is lost on a journey, and a frantic search turns up nothing.  It is only in returning to Jerusalem that they find Jesus, right where he’s apparently supposed to be: debating with the religious leaders in the temple.  Even so, one wonders if he did not end up grounded until he was thirty, based on the fact that we don’t see him again in the Gospel until he is a man beginning his ministry!

    And so I think what we’re supposed to be seeing in the Holy Family today is not some kind of idyllic perfection.  Certainly they attained more perfection than any of us could ever possibly hope for in this life, but that’s not what we’re supposed to be focusing on.  What I think is worth focusing on is that, even though they knew there would be hard times ahead for them, they faithfully lived their lives through it all.  They continued to be a family, Jesus continued to grow and become strong in his human nature, and to be filled with wisdom and the favor of God.  And that, for us, is something worth striving for.  Being perfect might seem impossible, but being faithful is possible and it leads us to holiness.

    For Jesus, Mary and Joseph, their faithfulness helped them to absorb the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy and the dangers of oppression from the government, and still shed light on the whole world.  For us, faithfulness can help us to get through whatever rough spots life may have in store for us and not break apart.

    I am aware, however, that as I speak about faithfulness, that it all can still seem insurmountable. Why should you be faithful when the hurts inflicted by other members of your family still linger? That’s a hard one to address, but we’re not told to be faithful just when everyone else is faithful. Sometimes we are called to make an almost unilateral decision to love and respect the others in our families, and let God worry about the equity of it all. I know that’s easier to say than to do, but please you have your Church family to support you with prayer and love as you do it.

    Every single one of us is called to be holy, brothers and sisters. And every single one of our families is called to be holy. That doesn’t mean that we will be perfect. Some days we will be quite far from it. But it does mean that we will be faithful in love and respect. It means that we will unite ourselves to God in prayer and worship. It means we will love when loving is hard to do. Mary loved Jesus all the way to the Cross and watched him die. What we see in the model of the Holy Family for us is not perfection, but faithfulness and holiness.

    That holiness will make demands of us. It did for Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Mary may have kept today’s Gospel event, along with many other events, in her heart, but they had to be hard to understand in the moment.  Yet they continued to live their lives, aided by the Spirit of God, and they all grew strong in wisdom and grace.  Those same blessings are intended for us to, all of us who do our best to live according to the Spirit in our own human families, no matter what those families may look like.

  • The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

    The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

    Today’s readings

    It’s certainly appropriate that we celebrate the Holy Family today, just a few days after Christmas.  This feast helps to underscore that Jesus came to live among us in a very ordinary way: by taking flesh and becoming one of us, even to being part of a family.  So we look on the manger scenes that still are on display here in church and in our homes, and we see Jesus, Mary and Joseph beginning their lives together.  We  still sing Christmas carols that extol the peace of his coming, we can even come to this church to look at the beautiful statue of the Holy Family.

    Our thoughts about that beautiful family might run along the lines of “how nice for them!”  I’m aware that some families who are here today may have just managed to get here on time, or a little after.  Maybe there was the constant argument with the kids about why they have to go to church.  Or maybe someone wasn’t quite ready on time.  It might have been hard to turn off the television or tear someone away from the Wii they just got for Christmas.  And so, as they hustle in here to church and sit down, maybe the holiness of the family is the furthest thing from their minds.

    So it can be hard to relate, I think, to the Holy Family in some ways.  Maybe you’re thinking, “How do I get one of those?” There are all sorts of families out there: families broken by divorce or separation, families marked by emotional or physical abuse, families fractured by living a great distance apart, families grieving the loss of loved ones or agonizing over the illness of one of the members, families of great means and those touched by poverty, homelessness and hunger, families divided by immigration issues, families torn by family secrets, grudges and age-old hurts. Some are trying to form a family: they want to have children, but are unable.  There are healthy families and hurting families, and every one of them is graced by good and touched by some kind of sadness at some point in their history.

    Even the Holy Family, whose feast we celebrate today, was marked with challenges. An unexpected – and almost inexplicable – pregnancy marked the days before the couple was officially wed; news of the child’s birth touched chords of jealousy and hatred in the hearts of the nation’s leaders and caused the young family to have to flee for their lives and safety. Even this Holy Family was saddened, in some ways, by an extremely rocky beginning.

    The institution of the family is an extremely precarious thing. We know this. God knows this. Yet it was into this flawed structure that the God of all the earth chose to come into our world. Taking our flesh and joining a human family, Christ came to be Emmanuel, God with us, and sanctify the whole world by his most merciful coming.

    St. Paul exhorts us all to be marked by holiness, part of the family of God. We do this, he tells us, by showing one another “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.” Living in a family, living the Christian life, requires sacrifice. Some days we don’t feel very compassionate, but we are still called to be that way. We might not feel like showing someone kindness, or patience, or being humble. But that’s what disciples do. But the real sticking point is that whole forgiveness thing. Because all of us are going to fail in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience at one time or another. So just as the Lord has forgiven us, so many times and of so many things, so must we forgive one another. We live our whole lives trying to figure out how to do this.

    Our Gospel reading gives us some direction and some hope today.  Jesus is brought to the temple as the Jewish tradition held.  An offering is made on his behalf by his parents and they have come to receive a blessing.  The blessing went deeper than they may have imagined, perhaps, but even this was probably not much of a surprise to them at this point.  Here both Simeon and Anna, who have been waiting for this very day all their lives, who have looked faithfully for God’s answer to the problem of sin, have their hopes and dreams fulfilled.  Simeon blesses the three of them and prophesies to Mary that all their days will not be without sadness.  And we all know how the story works out: Simeon was absolutely right about that.  But how disconcerting that must have been to Mary and Joseph who had come with joy to the Temple for this occasion.

    Like I said, this Gospel gives us hope and direction.  Hope by knowing that even this Holy Family had times of sadness in store.  Direction in the faithfulness they have shown one another.  The Gospel ends by saying that they returned to their town and lived their lives, and “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom;
    and the favor of God was upon him.”

    Because I think what we’re supposed to be seeing in the Holy Family today is not some kind of idyllic perfection.  Certainly they attained more perfection than any of us could ever possibly hope for in this life, but that’s not what we’re supposed to be focusing on.  What I think is worth focusing on is that, even though they knew there would be hard times ahead for them, they faithfully lived their lives through it all.  They continued to be a family, Jesus continued to grow and become strong in his human nature, and to be filled with wisdom and the favor of God.  And that, for us, is something worth striving for.  Being perfect might seem impossible, but being faithful is possible and it leads us to holiness.

    For Jesus, Mary and Joseph, their faithfulness helped them to absorb the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy and the dangers of oppression from the government, and still shed light on the whole world.  For us, faithfulness can help us to get through whatever rough spots life may have in store for us and not break apart.

    I am aware, however, that as I speak about faithfulness, that it all can still seem insurmountable. Why should you be faithful when the hurts inflicted by other members of your family still linger? That’s a hard one to address, but we’re not told to be faithful just when everyone else is faithful. Sometimes we are called to make an almost unilateral decision to love and respect the others in our families, and let God worry about the equity of it all. I know that’s easier to say than to do, but please you have your Church family to support you with prayer and love as you do it.

    Every single one of us is called to be holy, brothers and sisters. And every single one of our families is called to be holy. That doesn’t mean that we will be perfect. Some days we will be quite far from it. But it does mean that we will be faithful in love and respect. It means that we will unite ourselves to God in prayer and worship. It means we will love when loving is hard to do. Mary loved Jesus all the way to the Cross and watched him die. What we see in the model of the Holy Family for us is not perfection, but faithfulness and holiness.

    That holiness will make demands of us. It did for Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Simeon and Anna were quite clear that sorrow lay in store for them.  But they continued to live their lives, aided by the Spirit of God, and they all grew strong in wisdom and grace.  Those same blessings are intended for us to, all of us who do our best to live according to the Spirit in our own human families, no matter what those families may look like.