HOLY FAMILY HOMILY YEAR C
Sir 3:2-6, 12 – 14 (A, B, & C) Col 3:12-21 (A, B, & C) Lk 2:41 – 52
Family Life: Dream and Reality
Good Family Relationships.
1st Reading – Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14
2 God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.
3 Whoever honors his father atones for sins, and preserves himself from them. When he prays, he is heard;
4 he stores up riches who reveres his mother.
5 Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children, and, when he prays, is heard.
6 Whoever reveres his father will live a long life; he who obeys his father brings comfort to his mother.
12 My son, take care of your father when he is old; grieve him not as long as he lives.
13 Even if his mind fail, be considerate of him; revile him not all the days of his life;
14 kindness to a father will not be forgotten, firmly planted against the debt of your sins a house raised in justice to you.
Or 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28
20 In those days Hannah conceived, and at the end of her term bore a son
whom she called Samuel, since she had asked the LORD for him.
21 The next time her husband Elkanah was going up with the rest of his household to offer the customary sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vows,
22 Hannah did not go, explaining to her husband, “Once the child is weaned, I will take him to appear before the LORD and to remain there forever; I will offer him as a perpetual nazirite.”
24 Once Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh.
25 After the boy’s father had sacrificed the young bull, Hannah, his mother, approached Eli and said:
26 “Pardon, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.
27 I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
28 Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.” Hannah left Samuel there.
Responsorial Psalm – Psalms 128:1-2, 3, 4-5.
R. (cf. 1) Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.
1 Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD,
who walks in his ways!
2 For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.
3 Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
your children like olive plants
around your table.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.
4 Behold, thus is the man blessed
who fears the LORD.
5 The LORD bless you from Zion:
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.
Or Psalms 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10.
R. (cf. 5a) Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
2 How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
3 My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
R. Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
5 Happy they who dwell in your house!
Continually they praise you.
6 Happy the men whose strength you are!
Their hearts are set upon the pilgrimage.
R. Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
9 O LORD of hosts, hear our prayer;
hearken, O God of Jacob!
10 O God, behold our shield,
and look upon the face of your anointed.
R. Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
2nd Reading – Colossians 3:12-21
Brothers and sisters:
12 Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
13 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.
14 And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.
15 And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
18 Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.
20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.
Or Colossians 3:12-17
Brothers and sisters:
12 Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
13 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.
14 And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.
15 And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Or 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24
Beloved:
1 See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. And so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God
22 and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
23 And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.
24 Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.
Alleluia – Colossians 3:15A, 16A
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
15A Let the peace of Christ control your hearts;
16A let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Or CF. Acts 16:14B
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
14B Open our hearts, O Lord,
to listen to the words of your Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel – Luke 2:41-52
41 Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
42 and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.
43 After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.
44 Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
45 but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions,
47 and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.
48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
50 But they did not understand what he said to them.
Homily
The author of an essay called “What Is a Boy whites that all boys have the same creed: to every second of every minute of every hour or every day to protest with noise (their only weapon) when their last minute is finished and the adults pack them off to bed a night.
The essay says that a boy is a composite – he has the appetite of a horse, the digestion of a sword swallower, the energy of a pocketsize nuclear bomb, the curiosity of a cat, the lungs of a dictator, the imagination of a Paul Bunyan, the shyness of a violet, the audacity of a steel trap, and the enthusiasm of a firecracker.
Today’s Gospel episode is the story of the finding of the child Jesus in the Temple – a story that makes us question whether Jesus was like other boys The Jesus’ parents every year went to Jerusalem for the great feast of Passover (v. 41) showed them to be deeply pious. They trained their son to be the same. At this time, only the Jewish men who lived in Judea, and were thus close by, were obliged at all. But many who weren’t strictly obliged often attended our of devotion.
On this twelfth birthday, a young Jewish male became Bar Mitzvah, “a son of the Law”, and assumed the obligations of the Mosaic Code. It was the age when a boy began the practice of his chosen trade. We can well imagine how the Holy City, the Temple precincts, and the sacred ritual fascinated the boy Jesus.
When an Eastern caravan like the one for a Passover celebration got under way, all was noise, confusion, and excitement. Usually the women started earlier than the men each day, because their travel was slower. The two sections wouldn’t meet until both had reached the evening encampment. It wasn’t through carelessness, then, that Mary and Joseph missed Jesus. No doubt Joseph thought he was with Mary and Mary though he was with Joseph (v. 43).
During the Passover season, it was the custom of the Sanhedrin to meet publicly to discuss religious questions for all who were interested. The Rabbis sat on a chair with their pupils sitting on the ground at their feet. Jesus, searching for knowledge like an eager student, was listening to them and asking them questions (v. 46).
Upon finding the child Jesus, Mary, like any mother finding a lost child, was probably torn between hugging and spanking him. She informed the young Jesus that Joseph and she had been looking for him with great anxiety (v. 48). Jesus deftly took the name “father” from Mary’s imputation of it to Joseph and gave it to God: “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house (namely, the Temple)?” (v. 49).
This was Jesus’ first recorded public utterance, and it reveals that his reflections had led him to knowing something of who he was. When did that moment arrive that he knew himself to be different — unique? As Jesus grew older, he continually manifested greater graciousness (v. 52) because, like all thinking people, he grew in wisdom. As God, Jesus had infinite knowledge. As man, his mind could advance in experiential knowledge. And God intended many lessons from Jesus’ “hidden life” in Nazareth — for one, the lesson that prominent and brilliant successes aren’t essential elements of a noble life. Millions of the beloved of God are to be found among the obscure. But, as Luke’s Gospel says, he grew. Growth is a part of human existence, and Jesus realized its fullest possibilities.
Lest we think that Jesus’ words to his parents showed undue independence, Luke stresses Jesus’ obedience toward them (v. 51). Whatever he knew of his special relationship to God, it didn’t cause him to look down on his parents, the gentle Mary and the hard—working Joseph.
All of that accords with the best of Jewish teaching. About two hundred years before Christ, when the book called Sirach put together wise counsels on how to lead a life pleasing to God, it contained today’s section on the relationships between parents and children. This passage is a detailed commentary on the only scriptural command that has a reward attached. Honour your father and your mother, that you may have a long life (Ex 20:12). Sirach adds the religious motivation that those who honour their parents atone for sins (vv. 3 and 14). That’s a reward more amazing than “long life”. In fact, it suggests the substitution of “full life”. Jesus, for example, didn’t have a long life. But his life was certainly full.
Sirach, though, seems to be talking not so much about young children as about the duties of adult children toward their aging parents. With people living longer in our society, those duties are today very complex. There’s a cult of youth and beauty in our society and an often barely veiled intolerance of the old.
A story’s told of an old man who had lost his wife and lived all alone. He had worked hard as a tailor all his life, but misfortunes had left him penniless, and now he was so old he could no longer work for himself. His hands trembled too much to thread a needle, and his vision had blurred too much for him to make a straight stitch. He had three sons but, all grown and married now, they were so busy with their own lives that they only had time to visit their father once a week.
Gradually the old man grew more and more feeble, and his sons came by to see him less and less. “They don’t want to be around me at all now,” he realized, “because they’re afraid I’ll become a burden.” He stayed up all night worrying what would become of him, until at last he thought of a plan.
The next morning he went to see his friend the carpenter, and asked him to make a large chest. Then he went to see his friend the locksmith, and asked him to give him an old lock. Lastly he went to see his friend the glassblower, and asked for all the old broken pieces of glass he had.
The old man took the chest home, filled it to the top with broken glass, locked it, and put it beneath his kitchen table. The next time his sons came for dinner, they bumped their feet against it.
“What’s in this chest?” they asked, looking under the table.
“Oh, nothing,” the old man replied, “just some things I’ve been saving.”
His sons nudged it and felt how heavy it was. They kicked it and heard a rattling inside. “It must be full of all the gold he’s saved over the years,” they whispered to one another.
They decided to take turns living with the old man. So the first week the youngest son moved in with his father, and cared and cooked for him. The next week the middle son took his turn, and the week after that the eldest son. This went on for some time.
At last the old father grew sick and died. The sons gave him a nice funeral, mindful of the fortune they thought was sitting beneath the kitchen table; they felt they could afford to splurge a little.
When the funeral was over, they hunted through the house until may found the key to the chest, and unlocked it. Of course, they found it full of broken glass.
“What a rotten trick!” yelled the eldest son? “What a cruel thing to do to your own sons!”
“But what else could he have done?” asked the middle son sadly. “To be honest with ourselves, if it weren’t for this chest, we would have neglected him until the end of his days.”
The eldest son tipped the chest over to make sure there was nothing valuable hidden there. The three brothers stared silently at the bottom, where they saw an inscription that read, “Honour thy father and mother.”
Along with Sirach, today’s passage from the letter to the Colossians Shows the shape of a happy home. It’s from a section that exhorts Christians to live their baptismal life. During the ceremonies of baptism, the candidates took off their old clothing, a sign of their former way of life, and put on a white garment, a sign of Christ’s life. The letter lists the garments that must be put on for the Christian to live a life in community with others. The beautiful advice on the social virtues that should characterize our response to God through Christ is especially applicable to family life.
To the letter’s list of “Household Rules” of ethics: there might today be other applications and tomorrow still others, as needed, but for all time the key phrase is “in the Lor Pictures like submissive wives (v. 18) and nagging fathers (V. 21) may need explanation, but “in the Lord ” never changes.
Those who don’t like the advice given — about submissive wives, for instance — should look at the passage carefully. What’s presented here is something new in all the world up to that time: an ethic of reciprocal duties. The words “one another”, for example, are repeated three times (vv. 9, 13, 16). Remember that at that time under Jewish law a woman was a thing, the possession of her husband. A man could divorce his wife for any or no reason. In Greek society —- the society of the culture of the time —- a respectable woman had to lead a life of seclusion. She was never to be seen on the streets alone, even for mar— keting, and she was in complete servitude to her man. Under both societies’ double standard there was no reciprocity. All the privileges belonged to the husband, all the duties to the wife.
For the Christian, the wife is to be a support to her husband (v. 18), yes, but the husband is to love his wife (v. 19). Therefore the husband is to practice the virtues of those who share Christ’s life (v. 12): heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness (v. 13) — all of them essential for family life. Over all of them the Christian should wear the most important garment of all, love (v. 14). Christianity is, above all, community — togetherness in the body of Christ (v. 15).
The same reciprocity applied to children. Under the Roman law of the time the parents were dominant, especially the father, whose patria potestas gave him the power to make his child work like a slave, or to sell his child into slavery, or to condemn his child to death, or to do whatever else he wished. Under the new dispensation, children are to obey their parents (v. 20), yes, but the duties are in both directions, and in the Lord. These brand new precepts mean an awareness that Jesus is always an unseen presence in the family.
May God teach us the sanctity of human love, show us the value of family life, and help us to live in peace with all the human family.