Family: Father-and-Mother-I-Love-You!
Ecclesiasticus/Ben Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Colossians 3:12-21 or 3:12-17; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
How risky! A man and a woman abandoning their parents for a total stranger! And, sometimes, even going with this total stranger to a foreign land to live together – what a risk! The risk becomes more complex in interracial and inter-tribal marriages. Without fortune-teller or future-meter to tell what will happen in that relationship, yet, such marriages continue to take place everyday! Today, the celebration of the Holy Family, we celebrate the transformation of marital risk and fear into comedy through the power of love; where there is love, fear disappears and risk becomes an adventure, a comic adventure. In fact, every marriage must become a family, a place where God dwells with human beings!
Our gospel reading presents us with the comedy of love, as the definition of family life. “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt” is Joseph’s second assignment, after going on foot to Bethlehem from Nazareth, while Mary sat on their only donkey. The journey to Egypt is by far longer and more perilous. These episodes were missing, when Joseph fell for Mary, but became a reality afterwards. These scripts began to unfold following the love that attracted Joseph to Mary – the risk of loving and the sacrifice in loving. God, in baby Jesus, is like love – very vulnerable and delicate. A powerful God, but he comes and dwells in meekness and vulnerability. A God, like love, that needs protection and attention from human beings. Mary and Joseph – a family – are the soldiers to defend God, to protect love. A marriage turns into a family, when love becomes sacrifice.
The celebration of the Holy Family tells the power of love that reveals itself as the presence of God. Yes, the presence of God, because the Holy Family of Nazareth has God in its midst – baby Jesus – a divine comedy. It is God who took the very first risk in loving human beings by creating us; in order to be close to us, God became human, a member of a family; by this singular act, God becomes a member of every family. It is from the experience of God’s love that human beings take the same risk to love, to found families. Without God, without love, there is no family. The fragility of love makes love to hide from one of its own – Herod. God, in baby Jesus, goes into hiding from Herod the child-killer. God becomes a migrant, like many contemporary migrants of our planet earth. Many “herods” rule our countries and replace love with tyranny, the cause of many individual migrations.
In our age of broken marriages and family strifes, in all the “herods” or problems we encounter, if there is any lesson not to be missed from our celebration today, it is IMMIGRATION – the conviction that IMMIGRATION will definitely replace MIGRATION, that we shall overcome! It was the case with the Holy Family. Jesus, Mary and Joseph heard the good news: “Rise, take the child and his mother and GO BACK to the land of Israel”. Although they had a long way ahead of them, returning home must have been more exciting than departing from home. For us, our migrations come in different forms: it could be the risk of searching for love and founding a family; it maybe our arrival/birth into the world from God – living far away from God; possibly, our search for greener pastures for ourselves and those we care about is the cause of our migration. All these are risks, and they come at a cost – the price of love! Our return journey, our immigration, is the lesson from our first reading – despite the difficulties of family life, it is worth the sacrifice because life is the greatest gift anyone can give to another: parenthood!
Parenthood is the channel through which God displays his appreciation of the love shown in marriage: love turns into blessings in a family. According to our first reading, “God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons and daughters”. Love is always reciprocal, it returns to its giver. The labor of Mary and Joseph on Jesus, on God, is rewarded with eternal life and places in God’s kingdom. The sacrifices of all the parents in the world leave multitude of blessings behind for subsequent generations – their children and grandchildren. The “honor” and “authority” of parents accrue to them because they have sacrificed much, and their children return their kindnesses. In fact, children’s prayers are answered because they take care of their parents: “Whoever honors his father atones for sins, and preserves himself from them. When he prays, he is heard; he stores up riches who reveres his mother . . . When he prays, he is heard”.
If Jesus is just a baby at the heart of the Holy Family, he wants to grow up, he wants to become a man because he has the mission of salvation to accomplish. So, if your family must be like the Holy Family, your love for each other must grow and mature. Jesus comes into your family today, not as a baby, but by the dimension of your love. Your love for each other will show whether Jesus is an infant or an adult in your family. You and I must wear Jesus, as if we are putting on clothes. Our outlook must be Jesus, in order for our families to become holy families. Hear what our second reading suggests we do: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do”. Every marriage is a school of virtues, only those who graduate successfully with the requisite virtues become holy families!
For all those men and women, widows and widowers, not forgetting all divorcees and those whose marriages is taking a beating, today is your day, God has not abandoned you, he is very close to you. For you all I tell this story, that God may send you an angel:
There was a man who was a pious woodcutter. One day, he went cutting wood on a bank of a strong-current river. While cutting a log, his axe fell into the river, and he didn’t know how to swim. He knelt down and prayed: “Oh God, kindly go into the river and get me my axe”. He heard God saying to him, “fair enough”. So, God goes into the river and comes up with a golden axe. Then, God asked him, “is this your axe?” Mine isn’t a golden axe, he replied. A second time, God goes into the river and comes up with a silver axe. When asked whether it was his, he answered in the negative. A third time, God goes into the river and comes up with an iron axe, and the woodcutter said that it was his axe. In amazement, God gave him all three axes because of his honesty.
Another time, it was summer, the woodcutter was taking a walk with his wife. They chatted as they walked along. And, on their path was a bridge. As they chatted on the bridge, his wife fell into the river. Then he yelled out, “Oh God, kindly go into the river and get my wife for me.” God said fair enough. And down went God into the river and he came up with Angelina Jolie. So, God asked him: “is this your wife?” He shouted at the top of his voice, “yes Lord, she is my wife!” God said to him, “you lied!” He reply, Oh God, the last time I dropped my axe in the river, you went in the first time and came up with a golden axe, when I said it wasn’t mine, when went in a second time and came up with a silver axe; I said it wasn’t mine, it was only at the third instance that you came up with my axe, and I ended up with three axes that day. Therefore, Lord, if I had said that Angelina Jolie is not my wife, you would have gone in a second time and come up with Celine Dion, and if I say she is not my wife, you would have gone in a third time to bring my wife, then I will end up with three women: oh Lord, one wife is good enough!
Remain with your one wife and child(ren), and may God bless and make your family a holy family!