28-Dec-2017 Dear Friend, Whenever people settle down, one of the first things they look for is a place they can call home. There are some people who love to spend time at home while there are others who enjoy spending most of their time outside the home. What is it that makes a house a home? Christmas reminds us that the Son of God was born in a family- the Holy Family of Nazareth. Can we, and have we experienced God in our home? Have a happy family weekend! –Fr. Jude Sunday Reflections: Feast of the Holy Family – Our Family, the first community 31-Dec-2017Readings: Ecclesiasticus 3: 2-6, 12-14; Colossians 3: 12-21; Luke 2: 22-40;
In today’s first reading from the Book of Ecclesiasticus, Ben Sira reminds young people that they should remain loving and respectful to their parents, and look after them especially when they grow old. God promises spiritual and material blessings to those who do so. Young people may argue that times have changed, that they need to assert their own independence and take care of the family they wish to begin, which may be true. Parents have no right to demand that they be cared for, if they have given of themselves freely expecting nothing in return. But the duty to care for parents will always remain one of the Christians duties, drawing many blessings on those who fulfill this obligation. Can we manage to live alone?A student came to his rabbi with his problem. He said, “When I study, and particularly when I join others to celebrate the great feasts of our faith, I feel surrounded by light. I feel alive and joyful. But the minute it is over, it all disappears. Everything dies inside me. The old rabbi thought for a while, and then replied, “It’s exactly the same feeling a person gets who walks through the woods at night, when the breeze is cool, and the scent in the air is intoxicating. If another joins the traveller with a lantern, they can walk safely and joyfully together. But if they come to a crossroads, and the one with the lantern departs, then the first must grope his way alone. That is unless he carries a light within him.” When we come to the end of Christmas, and all the externals have been removed, will we have anything left within us? What if it all disappears and everything dies inside us? Does God call us to live alone?Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies’ Today’s Gospel passage begins with Mary and Joseph going to the temple precisely to fulfill the law, in fact two precepts of the law. One law held that every first born, of animals and humans, had to be offered to God and so had to be ‘redeemed,’ bought back, paid for, by making an offering prescribed by the law. The second law of Leviticus held that after the birth of a child, the mother had to abstain from joining the community at worship till she was purified by an offering of the poor. Mary and Joseph fulfilled both these laws though they were not bound to do so. Jesus did not have ‘to be redeemed.’ He already belonged totally to God. Mary did not need to be purified as she had conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet they submitted to the law humbly not craving any exemption. How very different from us, who so often claim that we are not bound by the law. “I don’t have to follow the law, I am dispensed because of my special condition, my age, my sickness, my …” In submitting to the law Mary and Joseph and Jesus are offering God a special act of worship. All three are saying in so many words “Here I am coming to do your will.” “Not my will but yours be done.” We have two other characters, who are not part of the Holy Family, and yet who are associated with the most important member of the Holy Family, Jesus Christ himself, namely Simeon and Anna. As a result of listening to the Holy Spirit, Simeon and Anna come into the temple and recognize the Messiah, they had been waiting for. Simeon lifts his voice praising God for letting him behold the redeemer of the world. There will be problems for every family but in spite of them we can become a holy family, a happy family, if Jesus is the centre of our home. He lived among usThere was once a journalist named Alexander whose country was at war with a neighbouring country. He decided to write an extended article about the war. With that in mind he went to the front to see for himself what was happening there. At the front he spared himself nothing. He went into the thick of battle. He spent his nights making careful notes of all he had witnessed during the day. After a month he decided he had seen enough. So he headed back to his office in the city. It took a lot of hard work to get the long article into shape. When it was finished he showed it to his boss who was very pleased and it was given front-page prominence and spread over five days. It created a big stir among the readers and Alexander was well pleased. But one day out of the blues came a letter. It was from a soldier who had served at the front but who was now hospitalized with a serious head wound. In his letter he said. “I know you meant well. Nevertheless, what you did does not entitle you to speak on our behalf. There is an unbridgeable gap between the bravest of correspondents and the ordinary soldier. As a journalist you were not part of the force. You were not subject to military discipline. No one would charge you with desertion if you ran away. If you really want to understand what it is like for us, you would have to join the unit, fight with it, not knowing if you will live or die, or if your comrades will live or die.” Alexander was deeply hurt by the letter. But he knew the soldier was speaking the truth. If he really wanted to be an authentic spokesman for the soldiers, there was only one way to do it- become a soldier himself. The big question was: brave man though he was, was he capable of so big a risk? In the incarnation this is precisely what Jesus did. Jesus became one of us. He didn’t just drop in, say ‘hello’, and disappear again. No. He joined the human family and lived among us.Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies’ Good ExampleA group of young people from many nations were discussing how the gospel might be spread. They talked of propaganda, of literature, of all the ways of disseminating the Gospels in the twentieth century. Then the girl from Africa spoke, “When we want to take Christianity to one of our villages,” she said, “we don’t send them books. We choose a Christian family and send them to live in the village and they make the village Christian by living there.”William Barclay Christ the LightA few years ago I returned to New Zealand to the scene of my early ministry. A friend had asked me to look up his sister who lived in Hamilton but I had forgotten her married name and only knew her as Peg Hyland. I even mislaid her address. I told the parish priest with whom I was spending the night about my quest. He had just arrived in the parish but he thought the person I was looking for lived in a particular street. We drove down the long street in the dark and were about to give up when he suddenly brought his car to a halt. “That must be the place,” he said pointing to the house. “It’s got to be it! We don’t see much of that sort of thing here.” The house to which he pointed was no different from the others except that in this one the blinds in the front room were not drawn and there like a beam we saw a little pin-point of light penetrating the surrounding darkness. It was a little red light illuminating a picture of the Sacred Heart. “Try that one,” he said, “and I bet you will find the one you’re looking for.” He was right. When the door opened to my ring, it was Peg sure enough and her many welcomes 12,000 miles from home were like music to my ears. As we chatted and drank tea from a Tipperary tea-pot it became increasingly clear that the light beneath the picture was a symbol of another light – Christ the Light of the world was a reality in that home.James A. Feeban from ‘Story Power’ Your family - a wonderful treasureArthur Tonne illustrates this point with a wonderful tale. George was becoming old and infirm. He had been a bachelor sailor most of his life. His nephew invited him to move in with his family. George gladly accepted. Now Bill, who had never travelled, did so by listening to the narrations of the many journeys of his uncle. George noticed that there were times that Bill was fed up with family life –arguments with his wife, bills, kids, sickness, etc. He told his uncle more than once, “I wish I was free to roam the world as you did.” One evening over supper, the old sailor told the family of a map of buried treasure in his possession. Bill saved the information away. A year after that George died. The nephew looked through his few possessions for the map. Sure enough he found an envelope addressed to him. It was the hoped for map. It took him a moment to read it. It led to the very house in which he stood. The dead man was telling him, “Your very home and your family are your treasure. Don’t blow it! Enjoy them.John Pichappilly in ‘Ignite your Spirit’ The gift of PresenceMaximillian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan priest, was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1941 and later that year was transferred to Auschwitz. There he quickly won himself a reputation for dedication to the needs of his fellow prisoners. Towards the end of July a prisoner escaped from the camp and the camp commander was furious and declared that ten of his companions should die in his place. He lined up the prisoners and picked ten at random. The tenth man chosen broke down and pleaded for mercy, saying he had a wife and family to support back home. At this point Maximillian stepped forward and offered to take his place. After some hesitation the commander agreed and the substitution was made. The ten prisoners were left to starve to death in an underground bunker as a deterrent to would-be escapees. In the days that followed, the guards watched through a peephole the agony of the dying men. They saw the men gathered around Fr. Kolbe. At times they were seen joking. At other times praying and singing hymns, Fourteen days went by. One by one they all died. Last to die was Fr. Kolbe. On the night of August 14th, he was still alive. A guard put an end to his agony by forcibly administering a lethal injection of carbolic acid to him. The man whose place Kolbe had taken survived the camps. Later he stated, “At first I felt terrible at the thought of leaving another man to die in my place. But then I realized he had done this, not so much to save my life, but to be with the other nine men in their last terrible agony. His nearness to them in those dreadful last hours was worth more than a lifetime of preaching” True love goes beyond the giving of gift. It requires the giving of self. What Kolbe did was an astonishing act of love, like his master and Lord, Jesus Christ.Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies’ May we experience our God incarnate in our homes, and in every member of our family! Fr. Jude Botelho [email protected] PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections.These reflections are also available on my Web site www.NetForLife.net Thank you.
