Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14

Colossians 3:12-21

Matthew 2:13-15,19-23

It is always a source of some discouragement to me that our second reading today is often shortened by many so as not to read the section which says "wives be subordinate to your husbands as is proper in the Lord." In that entire section of the reading, St. Paul lays down a very simple model of the Christian home. In addition to his admonition about wives and husbands, he urges children to obey their parents, something he also says in the Letter to the Ephesians, telling children to obey their parents "in the Lord," which is a very important distinction, and fathers not to provoke their "children to wrath." 

To understand what St Paul means here, we really need to look at a passage of Scripture that should be seen as the companion to our second reading today, and that is Ephesians 5:21-33. In this passage, Saint Paul underscores a reality that both the Second Vatican Council and recent Popes have reminded us of, and that is that just as the Church is the Bride of Christ, that the home should be a domestic Church. This is why Paul calls on wives to be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, but he also calls on husbands to love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the Church, in other words they are to love their wives to the point of even being willing to lay down their lives for them, just as Christ did for His own bride. 

The Apostles were keen that men should exercise the spiritual leadership in their homes in the same way that Christ exercises the spiritual leadership over the Church. There are some who misinterpret these passages and take them out of context, as if to say that the apostles would condemn women being in any leadership role in the larger society. They were more concerned about men behaving as Christ would, and taking the spiritual leadership in their own domestic Church.

The Church clearly teaches us that women are equal in dignity and worth to men, and we know that women can be equal (and often surpass us) in talent, abilities, and gifts. But what the Church has never taught is that men should abdicate the role of spiritual leadership in the domestic Church. The whole Church is built upon a Nuptial model, the Church is the bride of Christ, Christ is the bridegroom, and indeed the priest acts in the person of Christ. This is the reason why Sacred Ordination is limited to men, it has nothing to do with the equality, dignity or ability of women. 

When men abdicate the spiritual leadership of the home, this will begin to affect the leadership of the Church as well, since the family is the domestic Church. Studies on Church participation have repeatedly shown over and over again that in families where both the father and the mother attend Church with their children, the children are vastly more likely to continue in the practice of their religious faith. Saint Paul wasn't just an old fashioned male chauvinist fuddy duddy, he saw it with his own eyes in the early Church. When men take the role of spiritual leadership in their families, the families follow them, and that impacts the Church as a whole, and even the larger society.

Increasingly, in those households where the children are fortunate to have both parents present, it is not uncommon for men to abdicate the role of spiritual leadership and spiritual educator to the women of the house. Holy women set holy examples, holy families usually have holy men willing to be the spiritual guide that they need to be.

We see this very example in today's Gospel. When the angel made Joseph aware of the threat to the life of the holy child Jesus, Joseph led his family to Egypt, and when the time came to leave that place, the Gospel tells us that it was he who made the decision to return to Nazareth to avoid any further threats to the Lord Jesus. 

When Saint Paul repeatedly urges men to take the lead and wives to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, he is calling on Christian men to take that spiritual leadership. Our society needs the spiritual example of Christian men even more in our own day and age. Saying that does not mean that the contribution of holy and zealous mothers, daughters, and women in the Church is less valuable to the Kingdom of God or any less important, but it is saying that men should not abdicate their biblical and apostolic role.

All too often, we have seen mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, be the ones to cry out in prayer for their straying family members, their children and grandchildren. Sometimes, men in families think that the women should take charge of the children's religious training, I've even heard some men say that the women are better at that, but the home that has families that pray together, including and especially Dad, is more likely to have children who observe the faith. When Dad takes God seriously, it is far more likely that the whole family is going to take the things of God seriously as well.

God's Word tells us that, in the end, there is nothing new under the sun, and so this is a problem that the Apostles saw in their own day. St. Paul reminds us that in our brokenness and our sinfulness, our home should still function as a domestic Church, and the Church is still the bride of Christ and is organized itself as a family, with Christ as the head and we as His bride.

It is not an accident that it was the plan of God that the Second Person of the Trinity, His only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, would enter into the world and be born into a human family, and then he would make his Church in the image of a family with himself at the head of it, and ordained men who represent Him at various levels leading the Church on earth.

 We have been fed a steady diet of scandal in the Church now for many years. What the feast of the Holy Family should remind us of is the reality that as the family goes, so goes the Church, and as the Church goes, so goes the nation and the culture. All of the problems we see in the Church and in society don't happen in a vacuum, they happen in a family, or in the lack of one. In our own brokenness let us pray that the Holy Family will be the model for our own, and that as we rebuild our families, we will rebuild our Church, and rebuild our nation and our world.

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 7:10-14

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-24

Sacred Scripture tells us very little about St. Joseph, it tells us that he was betrothed to the Blessed Mother and calls him her husband, it tells us that he raised Our Lord as if the Lord Jesus were Joseph's own son, and the Scriptures tell us that Joseph was a carpenter, because the people of Nazareth refer to Jesus as the Carpenter's son. Perhaps the most important thing we are told about Saint Joseph, however, occurs in the Gospel today. We are given the Gospel account in Luke of the Annunciation as well as Joseph's reaction to it in today's Gospel from Saint Matthew, and then it is explained to us how the Holy Spirit revealed to Joseph that the baby Mary was carrying would be the Messiah. The Gospel uses a simple description of St Joseph, God's Word refers to him as "a just man."

Another way to translate this would be to say that Joseph was a righteous man. Just as Mary said yes to God with her fiat in the Gospel, St. Joseph also said yes to God when he woke up from that dream and took Mary into his home. After all, we can only assume based upon the biblical text that Joseph initially believed that Mary had been unfaithful to him, but Joseph was unwilling to expose Mary to shame, the Bible tells us. What that meant in reality was that Joseph was unwilling to see Mary stoned to death.

We do not see Joseph as a character throughout the New Testament, but we do see him in some very critical places in the early stages of Our Lord's life on Earth. We know that he was betrothed to the Blessed Mother, and that as the text says here, he recognized God's voice and God's call on his life to be the Foster Father of Christ. We know that he sheltered the Holy Family from harm by taking Jesus and Mary into Egypt when Our Lord's life was in danger, and then returning safely home to Nazareth. It is there that we know that Joseph was a carpenter, and taught that trade to the young man that his neighbors knew to be his son. We know that St. Joseph played a critical role in the early life of Christ, enough that he is remembered with a place of honor on the Church's calendar, and in the Canon of the Mass itself.

Yet we know a little about this man's life beyond those few details, but even knowing that, there is much that Saint Joseph can teach us about humility, and even the Advent season which we see drawing to a close today.

St Joseph truly took the role of spiritual leadership of the Holy Family, he took charge of a delicate situation and he made the very most of it for the sake of the Kingdom of God, when the easy thing for him to do would have been to walk away, and had he done so, we might not have known the wiser. Instead, he did the hard thing, he took on a child that was not his to raise, and a family he didn't have to take on for fear of scandal. He did this because he understood that this was the will of God and he wanted to live by it.

We get a glimpse of Mary's humanity as well, because Scripture does not tell us that Mary didn't question what was going on. She asked the angel the obvious question: "How can this be, considering that I haven't been with a man." Mary was not merely asking this question in order to get the direct answer, although the angel gave it to her. Mary was fully aware that there was a great possibility that her neighbors, her friends, her family, and her Betrothed would all believe that she had committed adultery, and Scripture indicates that that's what Joseph thought at first. We have the benefit of viewing the situation in hindsight, and with the eyes of two thousand years of Christian faith. They didn't have that benefit in those days, most people would have believed the evidence they could obviously see.

But through the messages of the angel of God, Mary and Joseph were made aware of the plan of God, as surely as they were aware of the risks that they would both be taking my carrying it out. As melodically beautiful as the song is, Mary's very response tells us that she knew exactly what she was getting into, she and Joseph were asked to answer God's Eternal call for their lives, and the unique role that they had in the plan of Salvation. Because they willingly put themselves at risk and answered God's call, because Mary and Joseph willingly said yes to God, today we call Mary the Immaculate Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, and we remember Joseph as a hero of the faith and Foster father of the Messiah.

All of us, if we are willing to take up the mantle of Christ, have a role to play in the plan of Salvation. We may not be fully aware of all of the details of what that role is in this life, but if we are willing to say yes to God, all of us have a place in promoting the Salvation of Souls, and the growth of the Church until the end of time. Everyone of us can say yes to God and be filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to be a witness to Jesus Christ according to our state in life. 

Just like Mary and Joseph, we are all called to say yes to God and to play our role in the promotion of the Gospel. There is no believer that God does not ask to step out in faith, to trust in Him, and to be used to advance the Kingdom of God. 

At its very heart, this is what Advent is truly all about. Every year, in the first weeks of the liturgical year we are reminded of two great truths of our faith. The first is that Christ will one day return to judge the living and the dead, that he will judge every man and woman according to their works, and one day the secret of all hearts will be revealed. The second great truth is that to save humanity from our own rejection of God, God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that the world through Him might be saved. God used a Galilean peasant girl and a carpenter from Nazareth, who said yes to lives of uncertainty in order to step out in faith and be part of the plan to save all of us.

Advent reminds us that Christ came once, and he came in order to give humanity a second chance. Mary and Joseph were given the opportunity to say yes to God, and we remember them because that is exactly what they did. We are all given the same opportunity, the opportunity to say yes to God and yes to the plan of Salvation and our role and place in it. Let us answer God in the same way that Mary did. "Be it done unto me according to thy Word."