The learning curve for Mary and Joseph is steep and the context is the annual obligation enjoined upon Jewish males to present themselves at the Temple on three occasions—Pentecost, Passover and Tabernacles. The one they should not miss on account of distance is Passover. While males were expected to be there, Mary’s presence indicated her commitment.
In our walks reciting the Rosary around the Cathedral, Uncle B and I would usually attempt a scriptural prologue before we recited a particular mystery. Typical of Catholics with poor biblical background, it was our valiant effort to ground the Rosary scriptually. It was one of those days, at the 5th Joyful Mystery, “Finding Jesus in the Temple”, I casually blurted out that “After three days of intensive search, Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the Temple amongst the elders expounding on the merits of Newtonian Physics and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity” and we broke out laughing.
But it was no laughing matter for Joseph and Mary because the boy has now turned 12. He is now considered a young Man and His religious instruction would have to become more intense. The relocation of the boy in the Temple is good place to start our contemplation on the meaning of being a Holy Family.
The title Holy Family is more than a description of their holiness. The first recorded words in Sacred Scripture from the Child to Mary must rank together with His later response to her when she made the request to turn water into wine. Or the occasion where the Mother and His relatives were looking for Him in the crowd. There appears to be a pattern of dismissive insolence or rudeness but not when one realises that the Child and later the Man Jesus is dedicated to the will of God. Even though Mary described both hers and Joseph’s grief at having to comb through Jerusalem for what they considered a lost Child, Jesus in reply referred to God as the Father: “Do you not know that I must be at MY Father’s business?”. This reply could only have deepened both Mary and Joseph’s anguish except that the Gospel noted that Mary pondered this episode in her heart. The same must have been for Joseph. In terms of holiness, the implication here is that Jesus has an intimate relationship with God the Father.
This crisis of a missing Child led to a clarification of His vocation and mission. For the Boy Jesus, holiness is an invitation to enter into an intimate relationship with God. Intimacy is the key word here. We do not carry out God’s will because it has to be done for that would suggest slavery.
What sort of relationship can one conceive of between a slave and a master? Generally it is characterised by submission. Does that sound like a religion we know of? Should not God’s will be embraced out of love more than out of fear? Without the intimacy of love, a person might chafe because a simple command will come across as an imposition. This is borne out of experience. Think of the occasions when a volunteer directs you to move away from each other or to sit elsewhere from your regular pew.
Those of us who value our personal freedom surely resent coercion. However, if we love, nothing is too much to bear. Where there is no love, even a minor matter will become a major inconvenience. Just be mindful especially of our aged parents who have outlived their usefulness or productivity. How easily we give into annoyance when they ask one question too many.
Christmas is basically the expression of the love of the Son for the Father. We frequently hear the verse from John 3:16 that “God loved the world so much that He gave His Son out of love for us”. The Father could not have sacrificed the Son if the Son did not in the first place loved the Father intimately in order to descend and pitch His tent amongst us. Holiness is less a possession. It is fundamentally relationship—with God.
Concretely, this relationship with His Father is lived in obedience through the family of Joseph and Mary. He lived as a member of a family and with that we all know that what is most sublime can be at the same time the most debased. You can pick your friends but you cannot choose your family. Surely, some of the worst fights are between family members, especially when money is involved. The greatest cross comes from the family and it is made more excruciating because we expect our relatives to be more loving and less hateful. In any relationship, the cut is always deeper the higher the expectation.
For good or for bad, we are stuck with the family because everyone must come from “somewhere” but we do not always have to remain there. We all have our history—to be proud or to be ashamed of. But bear in mind though that the worst sinners make the greatest saints proving that there is no familial history that cannot be redeemed because the Son of God who came to save us chose to be incarnated in a family. If history is the history of salvation, then the redemption we desire is mediated through the family. Thus, Pope Francis is right when he asserts that the family is essential for the transformation of the world because the value of love is learnt through the family. If the world is sanctified through the family, then rightly so that we title the family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus as the Holy Family.
Finally, the use of the word Sacrament usually refers to the distinct realities of Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist or any one of the other Sacraments. Underlying all these realities, the basic function of a Sacrament is to sanctify. Through the two Sacraments of service, Christ sanctifies the Church and the world. In the Sacrament of the Priesthood, Christ makes holy His priests and His Church. In the Sacrament of Matrimony, Christ sanctifies the family for the amelioration or the betterment of the world. According to St Cyril of Alexandria, “Our Saviour went to the wedding feast to make holy the origins of human life”. Thus, it is time for the family to embrace this saintly service, for the family is not just a social institution. It is not just a unit of measurement, meaning, the primary component of society. It is not even a remedy for human weakness or loneliness. The family is a supernatural calling, a necessity for the well-being of humanity. Without the family, civilisation will crumble. Without holy families, the world will be doomed. Therefore, families have no excuse but be holy because the world desperately needs holy families. Blessed Christmas.
