The Holy Family Year B, 2023

             

(Ecclesiasticus 3:2-6, 12-14; Colossians 3:12-21; Luke 2:22-40)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, today I am going to speak to you about Catholic teaching on a most contentious and disputed aspect of human life and society … I will not be speaking to  you as ‘a Government trained and sponsored official’ ... not as one who has got any University degree in social sciences … not even as a specially sympathetic person speaking from my own experience of life … although the latter qualifications could possibly be the best of the three just mentioned!!  No, I will be speaking to you about Catholic (not ‘Synodal’) teaching, the teaching of God first of all, through Moses, the Law of Moses, the teaching of the great Prophets – that is the Jewish teaching in which Mary of Nazareth was brought up – the teaching that Jesus Christ – the Son of God made Flesh –  came among us to live to perfection for love of His heavenly Father, and bring to its ultimate fulfilment for the eternal salvation of all who, through faith in His Gospel tidings, could become – in Him and by the Gift of His Spirit – children of God. 

Today’s feast and the readings chosen for it by Mother Church invite us to think on the characteristics of family life from the Christian point of view: the family life of a man and woman who have dedicated their union to Christ: for His glory, and also for their own fulfilment and salvation together with that of any children the Lord may give them.  It is a community of faith, hope, and charity; a domestic church.

Notice, first of all, the absolute importance of family for us Christians: the very Son of God would not enter into this world other than by being born into a family.  Deliberately adopted one-parent homes are not of God’s choosing and they are not endowed, nor are they generally able, to provide the human background, understanding and sympathy that God wants for each and every child.

Joseph and Mary were never to have sex our faith teaches, but Joseph was essential for the birth of Jesus: the family for God’s only-begotten-Son-made-flesh had to be made up of a man and a woman.  ‘Families’ of the same sex are not Christian families, they can neither pretend to be, or ever hope to become, such. Notice here that God the Father, when requiring that His Son be born as Man into a family made up of one man and one woman, was not just following an arbitrary rule or (Mosaic) law of His own making, He was doing it out of His over-flowing love of the future Child – His most beloved and only-begotten Son – Who was to become incarnate in human flesh.   Moreover, this unique Child-birth was not to be just a traditional blessing for the Jewish people; for God wanted His Son to be born into the family of Mary and Joseph for the greater good and the guidance, indeed for the salvation, of the whole world.

This fact of the supreme importance of some sort of family for the good of children and of society is not disputed among the great religions of the world.  Governments however, yield easily to popular pressures and they seek to promote not only what is good for the people but also, and at times, primarily, what is likely to be for their own good at the next election, as we see today.   At such times, popularity is of supreme importance … and   popularity means -- too often -- the lowest common denominator. 

Consequently we, as Catholic Christians, base our appreciation of the nature and role of the family not on any politically correct view but on the ages-long experience of human society, the inspired guidance of the Scriptures, and also the infallible teaching of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, and of the Church He has bequeathed us, through His chosen Apostles under the guidance and sustaining power of His Most Holy Spirit.

As in every body made up of several parts, the over-riding requirement is that of unity, for without unity such a body cannot function aright, and it will fragment.  That is why, St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians, when telling them how to give glory to God and how, in modern terms, to give good press to the Faith, spoke of that one basic and supremely important need for unity in Christian family life.  There was, of course, much else that he could have said about such family life, but at this point in his letter there was no opportunity for anything more than what was absolutely necessary, and so he wrote:

Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.   Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.   Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.

I think that everyone will agree that -- for men in general -- their weakness, their ‘Achilles’ heel’ in their relations with women and in family life, is a tendency towards violence, together with an excessive love of, and absorption in, work at the expense of personal relationships of understanding and love.  However, when considering more particularly the question of violence between spouses, and having just acknowledged a man’s tendency towards violence, we must recognize the fact that a woman’s violence WITH HER TONGUE can often be most BITTER, and that such bitterness can provoke men to resort to slap-violence.  It is essential to recognize that violence of whatever sort is wrong before God, and feminine violence with her tongue can be equally as wrong as man’s ‘slap-hand’ violence.  Legally however, woman’s violence with her tongue – her more natural weapon -- is rarely considered as criminal, though the harm done by it can be enduringly hurtful and harmful, whereas a man’s slap with his hand – his more natural weapon under provocation – is much more easily condemned as criminal.

Wouldn’t it be strange then, if Saint Paul, writing in order to preserve and build up unity in the family, gave guidance to married men that is so pertinent and precise -- love your wives and do not be harsh with them -- and then was to be very far out in his prescription for women?  His words to them are, in fact, just as clear and incisive as those words of advice he gave for men, and he, in the name of Jesus, told women then, and the Scriptures still proclaim his teaching to women of today: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”  Submit, that is, to your husband’s decision as being necessary for the family, so long as it is “in the Lord”.  Endless arguing should be anathema!

Again, our everyday experience confirms Paul’s teaching in this respect.  Modern day feminists see themselves as rivals to men not as complimentary to them; and even were the man to be their husband, their love for him as a person might well be insufficient to ameliorate their confrontational attitude towards men in general.  Moreover, because they set themselves up as rivals to, and independent of, men, they feel bound, frequently, to try to prove that they can do manly work every bit as well as men, claiming the right to be boxers, miners, front-line soldiers, etc.  There is no doubt that they can, indeed, do many manly things, but, at times, only at the cost of a certain loss of their own femininity.  A woman can drive heavy, long-distance lorries, slug it out in a boxing ring, dig coal, fight in battles; but what sort of woman will be the result?

The assertion of women’s rights is all to the good, it is the teaching both of Mother Church and the Scriptures that man and woman are of equal dignity and worth in God’s eyes; but the demand for equal rights carried to that excess which would claim equality in every respect, will only result in a society where there are fewer and fewer true men and women, and more and more human beings of no particular character: men  without spirit and strength of character; and women lacking female charm or grace of character, and much less able to sympathetically understand and positively guide and develop the volatile humanity of young people, and to form the bond of mutual appreciation and sympathetic help in family life, thereby promoting in a uniquely effective way social harmony and peace.

Paul’s last bit of teaching on family life concerns the young:

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.

Christian parents should never be embarrassed by this their right to obedience from their children.  Children who obey their parents gain a blessing from the Lord, because, Paul tells us, such obedience is pleasing to the Lord, and that is because it is for the good of the children.  You cannot be a good parent if you abdicate your God-given right to obedience from your children.  Children -- young people especially -- should note that they have to show obedience to their parents out of love for the Lord, “It is pleasing to the Lord”; and so there can never be any question of children obeying in what is sinful.

The last admonition is addressed by Paul to fathers because of their tendency towards violence in general, but today we know that it applies equally to possessive and domineering mothers:

Do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. 

Every aspect of Christian family life is ordained towards the good of the children, the fulfilment of the parents, and to the benefit of human society: parents in their attitude towards their children are neither to spoil them by releasing them from their duty of obedience nor are they to embitter them by their own harshness.  And the personal, mutual, relationship of husband and wife is, likewise, most necessary for the good of the children, and needs to be regulated with that end in view: therefore, the husband must love his wife, and the wife must respect her husband, both of them “in the Lord”, for family unity, peace, and cohesion, requires it.  Their personal fulfilment and sanctification as disciples of Christ and children of God go hand in hand, and are to be attained through that mutual fulfilment of, and submission to, God’s will; the nostrums of modern psychological or social theoreticians can in no way sound the depths of human nature or the splendour of mankind’s destiny.  It is noticeable that whereas modern society in the West recognizes, with St. Paul, man’s tendency to downgrade love, it is unable, unwilling, or even afraid (?), to publicly accept the equally noticeable tendency for women to downgrade respect.

Finally, let us have a look at the behaviour of Mary and Joseph in the Gospel.

I will just bring out one or two points for you to note.  First of all, Mary and Joseph both teach the Child obedience by themselves being obedient to the Lord and the Law:

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord. When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.  

Simeon the Temple priest blessed both Joseph and Mary, but in the matter of the Child’s Personal destiny it was Mary alone he addressed: Mary’s personal dignity was not in any way lessened or compromised by her submission to Joseph in the family, for the family. 

Finally, try to imagine the joy of both Mary and Joseph when they began to see the fruit of their personal sacrifices:

The Child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon Him.

The development of the Child Jesus is meant to serve as a model for the nurturing of all Christian children: they need to gradually grow in human wisdom and in their endowment of divine grace, so that their fullness of their God-given personality may develop hand in hand with their physical growth.

People of God, make every effort to bring up your children in a Christian family atmosphere in accordance with the teaching of Jesus.  A true home, both earthly and heavenly, can only be attained by our walking in the power and holiness of the Spirit, along the path prescribed for our well-being by the Father Who calls us, and trodden, for our example, by His Son Who loved, died, and rose again, for us.