22-Dec-2009 Dear Friend,
Christmas is truly a family feast. At Christmas we wait for family members to come home, we visit family and friends whom we love. We have a family meal and share our table with friends with whom we feel at home. Christmas is a feast of sharing so we exchange gifts as signs of love. At Christmas God comes to be at home with us. His name is Emmanuel, God-with us. He came into the Holy Family and comes into our family. Have we found him in our home? Enjoy finding Jesus at home! Fr. Jude Sunday Reflections: Feast of the Holy Family “Growing in the family in grace and truth!” 27-Dec-2009 Readings: 1 Samuel 1: 20-28; 1 John 3: 1-24; Luke 2: 41-52; The first reading from the first Book of Samuel speaks of the family of Hannah the mother, Elkanah the father and their son Samuel, who prefigure the Holy Family. This family is God fearing and they were deeply grateful for the gift that they had received of their son. In thanksgiving for the gift, as was the custom in Israel, Elkanah wishes to go to the temple to make a thanksgiving offering to God. Hannah his wife prefers to go alone to offer her son to God in thanksgiving. This family reminds us of Mary and Joseph who also received the precious gift of Jesus and offered themselves and Jesus in thanksgiving to God. Our own life has to be one of continuous thanksgiving because all we have are God’s gifts. Beyond family bonds the strongest bond should be our bonding with God. Attachment In the middle of the night a young boy wakes up in a hospital bed. He feels very frightened and very alone. He is suffering intense pain: burns cover forty percent of his body. Someone had doused him with alcohol and then had set him on fire. He starts crying out for his mother. The nurse leaves her night-post to comfort him; she holds him, hugs him, whispers to him that the pain will go away sooner than he thinks. However, nothing that the nurse does seems to lessen the boy’s pain. He still cries for his mother. And the nurse is confused and angry: it was his mother who set him on fire. The young boy’s pain at being separated from his mother – even though she had inflicted such cruelty on him – was greater than the pain of his burns. That deep attachment to the mother makes separation from her the worst experience a child can undergo. –Is God our father to whom we cry out when we need him? Denis McBride in ‘Seasons of the Heart’ Today’s gospel highlights one incident in the life of the holy family of Nazareth, their first journey as a family to celebrate the Passover feast at Jerusalem. Like any other Jewish family they journey with their relatives and friends to the temple at Jerusalem. But then there is a problem they lose Jesus in the crowd and vainly search for him. They know the responsibility they have accepted to be his parents and take care of him and so they are greatly disturbed in not finding him. When speaking of the Holy Family we must not forget that it was a family with a difference –the difference being that Jesus who was the Son of God was also the son of Mary. Jesus was indeed ‘subject’ and obedient to Mary and Joseph, but he was also on occasion ‘about his Father’s business.’ Obedience appears to be the hallmark of the Holy Family. They have travelled to Jerusalem in obedience to their Jewish traditions and customs. They take Jesus to the temple in obedience to the law and Jewish custom. They make their offering according to the Law of Moses. In short they did everything according to the Law of the Lord. We see Jesus too being subject to the law and subject to his parents. The entire family shows reverence to God’s law. But then we see another aspect of Jesus and his mission, in being son of the Father. While in the temple he leaves his parents and sits with the teachers of the law, listening to them and asking them questions. He is oblivious of the anxiety he has caused his parents who were frantically searching for him. When his parents find him Mary voices her anxiety: “My child why have you done this to us?” His reply appears to be equally strange: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s affairs in my Father’s house?” Mary and Joseph did not understand what he meant. The mission of Jesus was a mystery even to his own mother. His explanation was mysterious: God’s duty had called him. Mary pondered all these things in her heart and would accept them in faith. The Holy Family becomes a model for all Christian families, called to live in faith and in obedience to God and in harmony with one another and all people. We can only live with others if we live for others. If we do so we will like Jesus ‘grow in wisdom, in stature and find favour with God and men’. The Crib Once there was a parish which had a beautiful crib. The parishioners, who for the most part were white and well-off, were very proud of it. Mary was depicted as a handsome young maiden with snow-white hands. Joseph was a strong man with a serene expression on his face. The smiling child had the face of an angel. The shepherds were dressed in the garb of gentlemen. All the figures of course were white. The background consisted of low hills with a gorgeous castle perched on the summit of one of them. The star-strewn sky completed the idyllic picture. Then a new parish priest was appointed to the parish. One of the first things he did was to change the crib. Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus were now coloured. As were the shepherds. The backdrop consisted of a shanty town with row after row of impoverished shacks. The whole scene spoke of poverty and marginalization. The devout parishioners took an instant dislike to it. They insisted that their traditional crib be put back. -When we look at the crib, everything seems so pretty, so peaceful so orderly. Not a cry is heard from the child, not a sound from the donkey or the oxen, not a smell of any kind. The straw is clean. The coloured but subdued lights add a surreal quality to the whole scene. With our inward ear we hear the singing of the angels, and with our inward eye we see the star which led the Magi to Bethlehem. We have a tendency to pretty up the Christmas story. But in doing that we remove it from us. We empty it of much of the meaning it carries for us. - It was St Francis of Assisi who assembled the first crib in a cave on an Italian hillside in the year 1223. His aim was to make the Christmas story come alive for the people of the locality. His idea was to show them how close it was to them and their lives. And it seems that he succeeded. On Christmas Eve the friars and the people assembled with candles and torches around the crib. Francis spoke to the people, who were mostly farmers and shepherds, about God’s Son coming among us to teach us that we too are children of God, and that as such we have an eternal destiny. The shepherds and farmers got the messages: God had time for simple folks like them. At the end of the vigil they all returned to their homes, full of peace and joy, feeling very close to God and to one another. Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies’ “We celebrate the mystery of the child Jesus living with his parents. The tone of the celebration is a meditation wholly centred on Christ from which all Christian families can learn. ‘Where does the Messiah come from?’ Asked the contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth. They knew nothing of his birth in Bethlehem of Judah and they were amazed that one who claimed to be the Messiah should come from Galilee. This is why Matthew goes over the journeyings of Jesus while a child: his career as a displaced person. As a result of the menace of Herod his parents were forced to take refuge in Egypt, where Jesus re-enacted the history of the chosen people. Afterwards the family settled in Nazareth, hence the surname ‘Nazarene’. From the time of his birth Jesus was under the shadow of the cross. The accounts of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple and of his being found, again in the Temple, after his first Passover at Jerusalem, both underline the growth ‘in wisdom’ of a child dedicated to his mission from his tender years. In the temple at the age of twelve, the child Jesus anticipates his Easter destiny – lost, but found again on the third day in his Father’s house. The Holy Family had its problems. Mary and Joseph wished to share the lot of this perplexing child, whom they follow step by step, in the unfolding of his mystery. Our admiration should be awakened by their complete submission to God’s will” -Glenstal Bible Missal Star Trek When the movie Star Trek III was introduced it became an instant success. Much of its popularity flowed from its science fiction format and its space age technology. But there were other reasons for its success, too. One of these reasons is its human appeal to our deep instincts for family, not only for the natural family as we know it, but also for other family groups – like parishes, civic organizations and work communities. The Enterprise crew of the Star Trek movies forms a family. Capt. Kirk is a father-figure who tries to keep the family clan together. Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Scotty the engineer, and all the crew members belong to the Enterprise family. They are bonded together by more than their common work. They share with one another deep feelings of friendship, commitment and loyalty. In their own way, today’s readings from Scripture also focus on family values. Albert Cylwicki in ‘His Word Resounds’ Family Prayer Dorothy Day, whom the New York Times called “the most influential person in the history of American Catholicism,” says that one of her first attractions towards Catholicism came as a child when she saw an adult catholic at prayer. She writes: “It was about ten o’clock in the morning that I went up to Kathryn’s to call on her to come out to play. There was no one on the porch or in the kitchen…. I burst in…“In the front room Mrs. Barrett was on her knees, saying her prayers. She turned to tell me that Kathryn and the children had gone to the store and went on with her praying. And I felt a warm burst of love toward Mrs. Barrett.” That’s a beautiful scene, and I’m sure many of us can relate similar examples of adult Catholics at prayer. Let’s close with a prayer. General Douglas Mac Arthur wrote it in the Philippines during the opening days of the war in the Pacific. Though it is a prayer for sons, it is equally appropriate for daughters. Please pray along with me in silence: “Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, brave enough to face himself when he is afraid…“Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds… Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. “Let him learn to stand in the storm; let him learn compassion for those who fall. “Build me a son whose heart is clear, whose goals will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past. “And after all of these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humour so that he may always be serious yet never take himself too seriously …“Then, I his father will dare to whisper, I have not lived in vain.” Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’ May Christ be born at home in our family! Have a blessed Christmas today and everyday!!!! 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 remodelled web site www.netforlife.net Thank you. The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/
