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.

Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God Year B, 2023

(Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21) 

In the second reading we heard St. Paul telling his converts in Galatia:

As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

There Paul was urging his converts to recognize the wonderful privilege bestowed upon them by their faith in Jesus, a faith which enabled them to address God as ‘Abba, Father’ in all truth.  That mind-blowing privilege was theirs because the Spirit left by Jesus to His Church, to make up for His own bodily Ascension into heaven, was – and is -- the Spirit of God’s own Son, with power and mission to form all earthly disciples of Jesus into an authentic spiritual likeness of their Lord and Saviour, able to express their love and trust towards God, as did Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemani, with the word 'Father' (‘Abba’ being Aramaic for ‘Father’).

The Spirit bestowed upon Mary, however, worked so wondrously in her, that she was led to respond to God the Father with a love and trust that enabled her to bring forth not just passing words of praise from her lips, but the Divine Word Himself -- the Father’s co-eternal Son -- become Man from her womb!   So intense, so complete and absolutely unreserved, was the response of Mary to God’s word delivered to her by the angel Gabriel, that Jesus always openly praised her for that aspect of her character above all else:

And it happened that, as (Jesus) spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!"  But He said, "More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" (Luke 11:27-28)

"Who is My mother, or My brothers?"  And He looked around at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers!  For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother." (Mark 3:33-35)

We can also compare and contrast Mary with Moses who, as you heard in the first reading, brought great blessings down on Israel.  There, we were told how God would bless the Chosen People of the Old Testament through the use of certain words of priestly blessing that He gave to Moses for Aaron, his sons, and their descendants:

Tell Aaron and his sons: ‘This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them: “The LORD bless you and keep you!   The LORD let His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!  The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!”   So shall they invoke My name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.’

Those are truly beautiful words used to confer a treasured blessing.  But consider how God the Father blesses us through Mary and her Son.  For, she does not simply hand down, pass on, special words, she clothes -- with her own flesh and blood-- the One Eternal Word of God given her, and gives Him birth for the ultimate blessing and  eternal good of all mankind.  No longer simply a prayer for the blessing of Israel, but God's gracious presence in Mother Church for the salvation of the whole world!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.  (Ephesians 1:3-8)

Holy Mary, you are indeed blessed above all women by God the Father, for through you there came to both Jews and Gentiles the One God and Saviour, through Whom and in Whom all the blessings of heaven itself are promised to those who believe in His ‘Good Tidings of great joy’!

Again, in our Gospel reading we learned that those who searched for the Child found:

           Mary and Joseph, and the Infant lying in the manger.

Jesus told His disciples, through St. John at the foot of the Crosson Calvary, to take Mary to their hearts as their own Mother, meaning that, in their endeavours to become His true disciples, they would ultimately find that fulfilment only through her maternal prayers.  Mary is no mere addition, certainly no complication, for Catholic spirituality; but she is most certainly a challenge for many modern – formerly Catholic -- women whose main aim now seems to be proudly challenging men in human diversity, rather than fulfilling themselves -- and humanity itself -- through their share in God-given complementarity!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we believe that Mary leads each and every one of us to Jesus when we recall that she is not simply the model of the Church, but was the Church itself in its origins,  and that only in Mother Church can each and every one of us find Jesus truly and love Him fully.

Finally, we also need to understand that Mary, who is, for us, a temple of the Holy Spirit and a channel of blessing from the Father, is also our model and inspiration in our relationship with Jesus, in so far as the Scriptures tell us that she, our Mother, who was and is always most sublimely one with Jesus,

Mary kept all these things (that she had experienced and heard concerning Jesus) reflecting on them in her heart.

There is to be found the supreme example and the ultimate guidance for anyone  hoping and longing to find God -- our only true and sublimely perfect Father -- in and through Jesus: imitate Mary by treasuring the Good News of Jesus handed down to us by Mother Church who, with her teaching of the Scriptures, illuminates our minds to understand and appreciate the promised Christ of God; and, through the economy of her sacraments, enables us to fittingly welcome and worship His very presence in our midst, and receive Him with whole-hearted and personal love into our own individual minds, hearts, and lives.

As children of Mary, therefore, hear the Word of God proclaimed in Mother Church, with reverence and joy; treasure the mysterious presence of His grace in your heart; and, above all, dear People of God, seek to respond – by the Spirit – to God, the Giver of all good gifts, with that wholehearted trust and gratitude to which Mary herself gave perfect expression when she said:

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.   (Luke 1:38)         

Christmas Dawn Mass, 2023

           

(Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20)

Perhaps the most striking aspect of our Gospel reading this happy morn is the fact that it is all about the shepherds: from beginning to end.  Even when the story leads us into the presence of Mary, Joseph, and the ‘Infant lying in the manger’ the focus still remains on the shepherds, who:

Made known (to Mary and Joseph) the message that had been told them about this Child.

And though mention is next made of Mary herself, nevertheless, the shepherds are not dismissed, for we are told:

Mary kept all these things (told her by the shepherds), reflecting on them in her heart.

And the whole gospel passage is concluded with information concerning the shepherds:

They returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

Notice carefully that final phrase; for the reading could easily have ended:

            They returned glorifying and praising God all they had heard and seen.

But that would not have been enough, those final words nailing our attention to the shepherds were added:

            just as it had been told them.

Why are the shepherds so very, very, important for the beginning of the Gospel story, why are they so firmly established, centre stage, as it were?

Surely the answer is that the Son of God was coming in human flesh that He might shepherd Israel, God’s Chosen People, and that they might become sheep of His flock: the flock whose integrity He would protect and lead to rich pasture, while sparing the ewes that were pregnant and cherishing the lambs still weak; the flock He would protect from all dangers, while searching for and rescuing individuals gone astray, tending the wounded, nourishing the sick, comforting the fearful and calming the foolish.

From the very situation of His birth, therefore, Jesus began His life most emphatically proclaiming: ‘I am (going-to-be) the good shepherd’. 

At today’s third Christmas Mass attention will be directed to the divine Person and heavenly Origin of Jesus, and there our worship will be called for and His glory exalted. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.

But here, at this early morning Mass, our love is provoked – not for the Child as such -- but for Him Who has come to be the promised ‘good shepherd’ for Israel.

Shepherds tending their flocks were often lonely for long periods, regularly sleep-starved; and they had to  be prepared to face up to hyenas, jackals, wolves, and even bears; wielding only their iron-bound cudgels and large knives. 

Meanwhile, they had to be prepared to experience ‘burning heat by day and biting frost by night’ according to the patriarch Jacob who once served as Laban’s shepherd. 

Jesus had, most certainly, a  deep-down regard for, and appreciation of, shepherds; as is shown by His famous words:

            A good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

The shepherd’s life was hard and their public esteem was generally low; but Jesus openly acknowledged His admiration for those men willing to lay down their lives for their sheep.  That viewpoint is not generally appreciated today, and can even be attacked as being wasteful of human life.  For Jesus, however, it was, and is, the self-centered person – no matter how cultured or eminent – whose life was (is) supremely wasteful of a God-given opportunity.  A life embracing self-sacrifice to fulfil an obligation of trust, to express commitment to, not mere emotion for, the good – yes, even the good of mute and, at times, stupid, sheep -- evoked such admiration and love from Jesus that, no matter how humble, mis-esteemed or unappreciated by others it might be thought, He most readily saw Himself embodying it: laying down His life for His sheep, unhesitatingly going off into the desert in search of perhaps only one – very stupid indeed – lost sheep (Mary Magdalene and her 7 demons??), and most whole-heartedly rejoicing could He but carry such a lost one back to the flock on His shoulders!

For a true shepherd there was a ‘substantial’ reward quite apart from whatever pittance they might have been able to earn from the owners of the flocks, for a good shepherd loved the sheep of his flock, because he was their shepherd, he was their all in the desert.  And the shepherd was, in turn, loved by his sheep, which could number thousands; and being, of themselves helpless, the sheep were completely dependent on their good shepherd and trusted him implicitly and totally in return.  What is more, living together continually, through ‘thick and thin’ as the saying goes, there was a very strong bond of understanding between them:  the shepherd’s morning call as he led them out to drink was unique and immediately recognizable to the sheep of his flock, and he would often play upon a pipe or flute for them as they walked along the way to water or pasture; indeed, there were individual sheep so tame that they would respond to their name being called by that voice they recognized and trusted.

And so, People of God, we who are thought to be sheep of Jesus’ flock, should aspire to recognize, hear, and most gratefully appreciate the love that filled Jesu’s own Most Sacred Heart from the very first moment of His being amongst us, His future sheep.

What did He expect in return?

Since Jesus came to give, not to receive, and since self-love was totally alien to Him, I think we must conclude that He expected nothing for Himself.  Nevertheless, since His ability-, or opportunity-to-give would ultimately be dependent on mankind’s willingness to receive what He offered, then, out of love for us He must have deeply desired to be received as Shepherd, by the sheep He came so selflessly to serve and save.

Moreover, although Jesus expected nothing for Himself, He most certainly hoped for, strove for, and ultimately died for, whatever the best of human nature could be taught and brought to, offer, give to, and for, His Father.   What so shocked St. John and all the apostolic witnesses to Jesus was that:

He was in the world, but the world did not know Him.   He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept Him. (John 1:10-11)

However, His self-less love for us triumphed over that rejection both on the Cross and in His glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and that triumph has been shared with us by His Gift of His own most Holy Spirit.  Today, Jesus comes anew to us as our Shepherd, offering Himself to us and for us;  and we today, have -- by the power of His Spirit with us and in us -- the opportunity to change the wretched record of current history by giving Him a welcome into our own hearts not unworthy of that relationship between Shepherd and sheep foreshadowed in the stall at Bethlehem those long years ago.  That is why we prayed at the beginning of this Mass:

Father, we are filled with the new light by the coming of your Word among us.  May the light of faith shine in our words and actions. 

St. Paul told us in the second reading that:

The kindness and generous love of God our Saviour appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done, but because of His mercy.

God, that is, takes the initiative, He leads, He guides, He calls … it is our part, our duty, and surely, ultimately our joy, to LISTEN, to UNDERSTAND, and to RESPOND.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a wonderfully happy and most beautiful morning, for the shepherds were invited to the grotto where Mary and Joseph adored the Infant Jesus in manger familiar indeed to shepherds, where the Child was wrapped in swaddling clothes just such as would have been available in the shepherds’ own families; and their unimportant, but truly essential presence, so carefully and repeatedly stressed, assures us of this most beautiful and comforting truth: Jesus wants us to welcome Him this day as our own most loving Shepherd, and become sheep of His pasture: sheep who recognise His voice, trust Him implicitly and whole-heartedly, respond joyfully to His call, and thus come to know how to find peace in His presence and rest confidently in His care, by the Spirit, for love of the Father.