Pastor's Letter 20230101 - 01 January 2023 - Family Life

[Father Michael]

January 1^st, 2023

Feast of the Holy Family

The Holy Family’s flight to Egypt

A Message from Father ^†Michael

Today’s Theme:  “Family Life”

Reflections on Today’s Scripture

(Sirach 3:2-14)  Familial bonds are the first relationships to be experienced and those that bear the most influence in human development.  To be a parent—to love a child—is to share in the divine activity that resulted in the Incarnation of Our Blessed Lord. 

Today's First Reading offers a practical application of commentary on family life, focusing on the Fourth Commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12.)  The care for one’s parents was considered a sacred duty, the breach of which was regarded as a breach of the Covenant, itself.  Jesus ben Sirach cited the traditional blessings of long life and riches as rewards for faithful offspring; and honoring one’s parents as an external activity born of an interior conviction.  He saw the love of parents as an activity developed from a sensitive awareness to wrongdoing, and as such, would atone for sin.

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(Colossians 3:1-21)  For the Christian, the love learned within the family is extended and deepened through mutual care for the entire human community.  Through Baptism, believers enter into the extended family of the Church that comprises all the people of God.

^†Paul labored to lay the foundations for a new center of Christianity in every community he visited around the Mediterranean, and tried to foster an atmosphere of familial care and concern. In this letter he confronts the mistaken belief that earthly control stems from “angelic beings,” and reasserts that Christ, alone, possesses the very fullness of God and did not dilute his sufficiency with need for angel intermediaries.  Secondly, he addressed the tendency to adhere to Mosaic dietary laws, and stressed the Christian’s prudently-expressed “free-will,” as superior to blind-adherence to traditional Jewish tenets.  Above all, we are to “put on love,” and be called to thankfulness.  

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(Matthew 2:13-23)  Family love is brought to its fulfillment in the Sonship that Jesus shares with everyone who believes.  The child who is nurtured and protected with loving care will learn of the goodness and generosity of God through that experience. 

Many parents keep an account of their children’s growth and development in a “baby-book,” documented with loving care and often illustrated with pictures.  In ^†Matthew’s Gospel, we understand Jesus’ early development through the “lens” of Israel’s history.  His escape to Egypt, with ^†Joseph and ^†Mary; the massacre of the “firstborn” by Herod; and the subsequent return to Nazareth are each chronicled as fulfillment of myriad prophetic citations from Scripture.  As the “New Moses,” Jesus became the legislator of a new covenant between Israel and God—skillfully woven together as a symbiotic representation of Jesus’ early days.  Like Jesus, Moses, was also threatened by a jealous tyrant (Pharaoh,) and his early life affected by astrologers and a miraculous escape.

The Role of the Family

If you plant a tree in an exposed place, it becomes very vulnerable—at the mercy of every wind that blows.  If it survives at all, it will become twisted and shunted—a poor specimen of what it could have been.  If you want a tree to grow to its fullest potential, you must plant it in a more sheltered place, with other trees around it.

It is of vital importance, too, to be sure there is sufficient space between those trees.  They must be close enough to receive shelter from each other, but not so close their development will be stifled.  Each one needs adequate room to grow.

It's not good for a tree to be “alone.”  Nor is it good for any of us to be alone.  For wholeness and good mental health, each of us needs the love and friendship of other humans.  Our Creator did not make us to be isolated, or complete, within ourselves.  We were made to be in a “community”—other people—in order to realize our fullest potential.  

This is where the concept of “family” is realized.  Trees, planted in the form of a little “grove” is a good example of an “ideal family.”  The space between them provides enough “closeness,” “intimacy” and “warmth” for satisfactory support, while allowing room to grow.  This also minimizes dominance.

We learn to form vitally important relationships with others in the family.  Inability to relate to others has been shown to be a great handicap and sometimes promotes overwhelming sadness in adult life.  Without close affiliations with one another, we are at the mercy of the “cold winds” of anguish and loneliness.

Our family communities foster our ability to bond with others—to “make room” for others in our lives.  Therein, we learn to share with one another; and become responsible for and to one another.  The word “we,” is first learned in the family setting, without which, there would be no community, no sharing, no togetherness….

Of course, being so close also involves “risk.”  While we learn how to help and heal one another, we also can learn to hinder and hurt.  Sometimes, people keep their “best behavior” for outside the home, and their worst, inside it—becoming “angels” or “devils,” depending on the surroundings.  (Conversely, one interesting observation:  The difficulty some parents have with their children misbehaving in public, may suggest they have never taught them how to behave at home, either….)

Harmony in the family can be achieved only by the practice of the virtues, about which ^†Paul preached:  kindness; humility; gentleness; patience; mutual forgiveness; and above all, love (from today’s Second Reading.) These virtues build and foster community, but they are not easy to practice with consistency.  

We see the family under great pressure throughout society, today.  It is not that people no longer value the family, but it is that we are not prepared for the disciplines that make it work.  Families are built on bonds of commitment, fidelity and self-sacrifice.  It was due to His life spent in a small community of love with ^†Mary and ^†Joseph that the Child, Jesus, was able to “grow in wisdom and favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52.)

In our little community of the family, we have “a place;” we have “bonds;” we have “identity;” and we have “roots.”  Even if a family knows hardship, this is not necessarily a bad thing: hardships can be a grace. Like trees that grow on hard ground and have firmer roots, such difficulties serve to better equip us to meet the inevitable “storms” of life.  

Parents and Children

The primary obligation of parents is to love their children.  From this, flows the obligation of children to obey their parents.  This interdependence of roles must develop if people are to become upstanding members of society, with regard for one another…and the law.  Having never learned this, criminals are wont to flaunt their disregard of each other and become burdens upon the world.  

Another outcropping of such deficiency is the neglect we see as regards the elderly and the homeless.  Such people are “pushed to the margins” of our culture, and tend to become forgotten.  There is a saying, “One mother can care for ten children, but ten children can’t take care of one mother.”  Under God, we own everything to our parents.  Jesus ben Sirach, (the author of our First Reading today,) asserts that kindness to parents is especially pleasing to God, Who even accepts it as atonement for our sins.  

This can apply, as well, to the homeless.  They are increasingly becoming a major burden in cities and towns across the globe.  For many, their conditions result from “poor choices” they have made.  For others, “poor mental health” is the predominant factor.  Still others, having been disappointed by mainstream society, have become disenfranchised, and have yielded to a gripping despair.  

If we are to serve each other to the best of our abilities, according to Jesus’ “Great Commandment,” it stands that we have an obligation to those with the greatest needs.  It can be as simple as donating from our surplus to organizations whose focus is the downtrodden, or it may be expressed as a direct, communal outreach from our congregations.  But in any event, if we firmly believe ourselves to be united within the Mystical Body of Christ, our efforts to include the marginalized of our world should be of paramount importance.  

In every context, then, the Holy Family serves as our model.  In no circumstance do greater difficulties present themselves than in reaching out to people who seem to be “beyond help.”  Nevertheless, it’s our first and holiest duty to offer kindness to others.  God is served even when we offer a cup of water in His name….

May God Richly Bless You!

 

Canticle of Fellowship.docx

There is no recording of Holy Mass for today.  We are "at sea," traveling to Hawaii.