Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The feast of the Holy Family is usually the Sunday after Christmas and is a marvelous solemnity about the holiness of the Christian family and how it was designed by God. The Holy Family is made up of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. This is not the prototype of a Christian family and to rub it in your face because your family is not this way. First of all, your wife is not full of grace or sinless, right? Your husband is nothing like St. Joseph, maybe he looks like him but that is the end of the similarity. And surely your kids are not like Jesus. Your family is not the holy family of Nazareth so be at peace.
The feast is not to say that your family must be like this one. It doesn’t mean that you are not a Christian if your family is different from the holy family. It is just the opposite. It comes to show us how great this love is among them. We hear in this gospel Jesus’ first words that were recorded. He said many more things, but these are the first ones to appear in the gospels. Jesus said, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?” It is a good question for us. Are you looking for Jesus? Perhaps you are just looking in the wrong place as Joseph and Mary did. They were looking for him in the caravans because they thought he was with them. Perhaps there are many who believe that Jesus is with them always; he is my little God. So check and see if he is really there or not. You might be surprised. Even Joseph and Mary noticed that he was no longer there. (In the caravans the women traveled separately from the men which explains how this might have happened.) Where did they find Jesus? He was in the temple. There may come a day when you see that the child Jesus is in your life, nor is he by your side. You haven’t even seen a glimpse of him in your life. Then what do I do? I go running to Jerusalem and there you will find him.
This wonderful gospel tells us where we can find Jesus when you go to Jerusalem, which is the Christian community. The Christian community is Jerusalem. The temple is the community. The community is not a group of people who don’t know one another or even love one another. Jesus said love one another as I have loved you. Who did he say this to? To the community of his disciples. Jesus did not start a parish. He formed a Christian community. It could be some day that most of the parishes will disappear since there are closing more and more of them since there are fewer parish priests. Pope Benedict XVI said before he became pope that the Church will become a remnant, just some ashes. It will be a very small thing but from there will emerge a love, an evangelization, a faith that will be so impressive because it is necessary for the world to see a Christian community. The Christian community will prevail because that is where Christ will be. So come to the temple to look for the Lord!
What is your attitude when you come to the Mass? Many come because they paid for the intention so the priest can offer that Mass for someone who died. Some will come because they see that it helps them. Others come to fulfill the law or because it is Christmas or so that God may help me, and I have to remind Jesus that I am here suffering. Or so that I can say, look I am here so do not punish me. These show signs of a mentality not very Christian. Hopefully some come like the tax collector when he went to the temple and said, “Lord, have mercy on my, for I am a sinner.” He doesn’t come like a Pharisee thinking that he is better than that tax collector. He comes to meet Jesus Christ and says this prayer: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. This is what it means to find Jesus Christ and to know him face to face. This is necessary in order to be a true Christian, not just one who has the certificate of Baptism and Confirmation. It is necessary to meet him face to face.
I cannot know Jesus only from what others have told me about him or from learning about him in classes or in studying the catechism. I have heard a lot about Jesus, but I have not seen him in my life, so I am not a Christian. This is why you have problems in your life because you only know him through hearsay. Job said at the end of his sufferings, ‘Before I knew you through hearsay, but now I see you with my very own eyes.’ I can see how Christ looks. In Christ I can see God’s love. God loving you is Jesus Christ. Christ is the love of God. The love of God in your family is not that the other one is the way you would like him or her to be. You think your neighbor’s family is easier to love because you don’t know them, nor do you know your neighbor’s spouse.
God’s love is seen in the family and often you don’t see it because you are blind. Ask the Lord to open your eyes and see his love in the midst of that chaos in the family. Today the world thinks that people living together are a family, even if there is one person and many animals. We have come to humanize animals in an absurd way. Pets can get chemotherapy, and some have gone into debt so they can do a heart transplant, but this is crazy. And often the grandparents are sent to a nursing home, and no one visits them.
There are many single mothers who are very heroic and work and care for the children and there is no father figure in the life of the children. No matter how much she loves the children she can never be the father and the same if the father is a single parent; he can never be the mother. Each one has a unique and wonderful role to play in the family. The mother is loving, understanding, merciful; she is not the one who punishes the kids, usually. The father is the authority figure and is the head of the house. Many women choke when I say this. Without the head the body is nothing and cannot move. It directs the heart to receive the blood and send it to the lungs in order to breathe. It is to say that there needs to be communion among the spouses, and this gives security to the children. A child has a right to have a mother and a father. A couple who does not know what it means to be a father and a mother cannot be given a child.
I hope you come to this eucharist with a good intention that you want to enter this banquet and that you come because you are looking for the Lord. You come saying, Lord, I need you in my life because without you I die. I am starting to see that without you my life makes no sense. I was looking for you, but I did not know that you had to do the things of your father. What are those things? To love you. This is what the Father does, he loves you. He sent his sone into the world to love you. The Father wants that all men be saved, and he sent his Son to save you. It is God who was born to be the Messiah. The Lord who saves you is Christ, not money, nor idols, nor work. The only one who saves you is Jesus Christ. Ask the Lord that you really want to meet him someday face to face. That love will transform you totally; you will be crying with tears of joy. He will change you and we are still sinners and thank God that help us to see that we are like clay pots, not golden vessels, but made of clay.
The family is a wonderful treasure also made of clay. Don’t let this treasure get into the filthy hands of the devil. The treasure is the love of God that you have received, that you have heard, that you are living!