Sermon 59: The Holy Family (B)
(Ecclesiasticus 3:2-6, 12-14; Colossians 3:12-21; Luke
2:22-40)
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. One parent
homes are not of God’s choosing and -- apart from special circumstances with
the help of public support or by God’s special grace -- they are not 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 to become
incarnate in human flesh. Moreover,
this 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 of the whole world.
This fact of the supreme importance of the family for the
good of children and of society is not disputed among the great religions of
the world, nor do governments of the free world dispute the Christian family’s
role and function for the good of society in general. 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 when they pretend that same-sex unions can be
accepted as a family alongside the family of man and woman.
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 Mother Church.
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 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 developing 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
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, though she also is known to use slaps when arguing -- is rarely
considered as criminal, though the harm done by it can be enduringly hurtful,
whereas a man’s violence with his hand that is, a man’s slap with his hand – his more
natural weapon under provocation -- seems to be regularly 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, many brave actions, 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 (other than
over-stressed and exploited physical beauty), and much less able to sympathetically
understand and positively guide and develop the volatile humanity of young children,
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 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.
(2020)
