As we meditate upon the Holy Family created at Bethlehem (where the Child was born) and Nazareth (where He grew up), we turn our minds to the very concept of family and family life as the Church looks at it. We look at the Holy Family as the ideal that we all reach for, while we are well aware of the messiness that can feature in our own experience. The Saints of the Church can advise charity, forbearance, etc. S. Paul in our second reading this weekend, for example, asks that we bear with each other, and forgive each other quickly when a quarrel has begun.
“You are God’s chosen people, holy and well beloved; the livery you wear must be tender compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; you must bear with one another’s faults, be generous to each other, where somebody has given grounds for complaint; the Lord’s generosity to you must be the model of yours. And, to crown all this, charity; that is the bond which makes us perfect. So may the peace of Christ, the very condition of your calling as members of a single body, reign in your hearts. Learn, too, to be grateful. May all the wealth of Christ’s inspiration have its shrine among you; now you will have instruction and advice for one another, full of wisdom, now there will be psalms, and hymns, and spiritual music, as you sing with gratitude in your hearts to God. Whatever you are about, in word and action alike, invoke always the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, offering your thanks to God the Father through Him. Wives must be submissive to their husbands, as the service of the Lord demands; and you, husbands, treat your wives lovingly, do not grow harsh with them. Children must be obedient to their parents in every way; it is a gracious sign of serving the Lord; and you, parents, must not rouse your children to resentment, or you will break their spirits.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Colossians, 3: 12-21 [link]
Put on love, he says. Well, it’s easier said that done, isn’t it? When tempers flare, when we hold grudges, when daily irritations push us to say and do things we regret later… it’s hard to hang upon a cross in torment and not at least complain a little bit. But let us continue to reach for the ideal, to strive for perfection in Christian living, even in a world where that may now be abnormal.
Modern people don’t seem to like hierarchy and tradition. At least here in the West. We look at the societies and families of the East – which are increasingly appearing here among us – and we perhaps think, How quaint, that’s how we used to be… But we have progressed away from it, haven’t we? Our own societies rather have become anti-family, anti-hierarchy, and now eventually even anti-human. It’s all connected, and the result of a persistent rebellion against how things were. We have wonderful adjectives for the Victorians, and the Georgians, and so on. Their society was still very Christian, and ours is not so much.
It is therefore hard to preach and teach the Christian ideal of marriage and family life. We need more than ever to be inspired by the Holy Family, and by the family lives of Christians throughout history. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the family is the original cell of social life, and that the traditional family with father and mother ruling their children with authority is natural, and establishes stability and security for family members to flourish, and with fraternal links to the society around. That sounds about as quaint as the traditional family life of Eastern societies.
“Speak we now of a father’s rights; do you, sons, give good heed, and follow these counsels, if thrive you would. God will have children honour their fathers; a mother’s rights are His own strict ordinance. A lover of God will fall to prayer over his sins and sin no more; so, all his life long, his prayer shall find audience… riches he lays up for himself, that gives his mother her due. As thou wouldst have joy of thy own children, as thou wouldst be heard when thou fallest to praying, honour thy father still. A father honoured is long life won; a father well obeyed is a mother’s heart comforted. None that fears the Lord but honours the parents who gave him life, slave to master owes no greater service. Thy father honour, in deed and in word and in all manner of forbearance; so thou shalt have his blessing, a blessing that will endure to thy life’s end. What is the buttress of a man’s house? A father’s blessing. What tears up the foundations of it? A mother’s curse. Never make a boast of thy father’s ill name; what, should his discredit be thy renown? Nay, for a father’s good repute or ill, a son must go proudly, or hang his head. My son, when thy father grows old, take him to thyself; long as he lives, never be thou the cause of his repining.”
Book of Ecclesiasticus (aka. Sirach), 3: 2-14 [link]
We see the tradition of Christian family life in this our first reading this weekend as well, so it is a Jewish tradition in the end. The father and mother to be honoured and respected, the rights of both upheld. This extract is from the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach, as we now call it) which provides an expansion of that well-known fourth commandment, to honour father and mother. In honouring our parents, we honour God; if we seek a heavenly reward for this we shall receive it, but if we simply do it simply for love we imitate God Himself. If we have to struggle against society and the civil authority to obey this commandment, there is a greater virtue still in the act, because the element of persecution is added. The Catechism also says that the political community has a duty to support families, defend family traditions, defend the marriage bond, establish freedoms, etc. – but does it really? The Church is rather optimistic, of course, but we must hope, and the Bishops do speak out publicly from time to time on the subject of marriage and family life.
Let’s look at the picture of the Holy Family in our gospel reading this weekend. The tiny Infant and His mother are extremely vulnerable, and heaven is not absent to them. Angels are everywhere. Beyond all else, the salvation of the human race hangs upon the survival of the Child, and heaven has appointed a protector in the quiet S. Joseph, a man whose tireless devotion to his wife and to the Child is evident in his efforts to protect them from Herod and then from Herod’s son Archelaus.
“As soon as they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, ‘Rise up, take with thee the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt; there remain, until I give thee word. For Herod will soon be making search for the Child, to destroy Him.’ He rose up, therefore, while it was still night, and took the Child and His Mother with him, and withdrew into Egypt, where he remained until the death of Herod, in fulfilment of the word which the Lord spoke by his prophet, I called my son out of Egypt. Meanwhile, when he found that the wise men had played him false, Herod was angry beyond measure; he sent and made away with all the male children in Bethlehem and in all its neighbourhood, of two years old and less, reckoning the time by the careful enquiry which he had made of the wise men. It was then that the word spoken by the prophet Jeremy was fulfilled: A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation and great mourning; it was Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because none is left. But as soon as Herod was dead, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in Egypt in a dream, and said, ‘Rise up, take with thee the Child and His Mother, and return to the land of Israel; for those who sought the Child’s life are dead. So he arose, and took the child and his mother with him, and came into the land of Israel. But, when he heard that Archelaus was king in Judaea in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to return there; and so, receiving a warning in a dream, he withdrew into the region of Galilee; where he came to live in a town called Nazareth, in fulfilment of what was said by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”
Gospel of S. Matthew, 2: 13-23 [link]
There is no doubt that this guardian figure is the head of the household, and takes up the role of father to the God-man Himself, Who we told later on submits in humility to the rule of His mother and of S. Joseph. Humility was the mark of Christ, from infancy and childhood, and until the torture of the Cross. Humility was the mark of His holy Mother, all of her life. Humility was the mark of S. Joseph, who served the Lady and her Child faithfully.
So, we shall learn from them faith in the Father God, persistent charity in our relationships, and the humility to submit to each other in charity. With Sirach in the first reading, we accept the hierarchical constitution of the family and patiently endure difficulties. With S. Paul in the second reading, we are thankful for this gift of the family, by which we entered this world, and by which (by Himself entering the world) God our Lord brought salvation to us all.
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 