Holy Family, Year A December 29, 2019
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
I’ve had some pretty weird dreams. I’m not so sure I’d uproot my whole family from just a dream. What makes St. Joseph so certain that this dream is from God rather than a bad meal? Because he has learned to recognize the voice of God, to care for his family according to God’s design. Through a lifetime of prayer and discernment, Joseph has developed a sensitivity to when God asks something of him, so he recognizes the angels message as something from God.
And as we celebrate the Holy Family today, realizing this is crucial. The family is the most basic building block of society. The Image of God, revealed in Male and Female, shines through the family. So, when God chooses to enter into our world to save us from sin, he uses a family to do it, a family that becomes the model for all Christian families.
And if you think about it, poor St. Joseph was the only sinner in this family. Jesus is God and so can’t sin. Mary was immaculately conceived and never sinned. St. Joseph? All we know is that he is descended from David. He doesn’t even get a single line in the Gospels. Yet, God chooses to send his message to Joseph, not Mary. God chooses to make himself a child obedient to Joseph. Why?
Because of what the family reveals about God. Increasingly unpopular though it is, it has always been the teaching of the Church that man and woman have equal but different roles in revealing God to the world and they are not interchangeable. God, who has every right to change things up, treats Joseph as the head of the family, asking him to protect the family, to lead them to Egypt and back.
Typically, any mention of men being “head” of the family turns people away or gets them excited for the wrong reason. Both sides tend to fixate on when the second reading says “wives, be subordinate to your husbands.” Yet, the example of St. Joseph is crucial in clarifying just what this “headship” even means.
Let me say outright, that it changes nothing about the equality of man and woman. They are equal and neither is “better” than the other. It changes nothing about the free will of human beings. Every human being has free will and the right to use their freedom. It changes nothing about the authority of a woman in her family – everybody knows that a wife and mother is a powerful person for both husband and children.
Still, men and women are different. God uses them differently. There is real meaning to men having a spiritual headship. But this is not about power, it is about responsibility. St. Joseph’s ability to see the difference between a weird dream and a message from God tells us that men must be men of prayer, able to recognize God’s voice.
Then there is Joseph’s silence. Not once do we see Joseph domineering Jesus or Mary. It’s implied that they follow his lead on going to Egypt, but we don’t see him flexing his power. Joseph is humble and his decisions are based entirely on what is good for Jesus and Mary. It’s not a career opportunity, it’s not a stag party, it’s not a game of golf. He leads his family a difficult and challenging journey for their sake. His “power,” if you want to call it that, only exists if he uses it for the good of the family. That’s why scripture tells men to love their wives, to avoid bitterness, and to avoid provoking their children.
It is a real authority, though. If a man shirks his responsibility, if he lets his wife handle all the prayer and education, his children suffer for it. Every statistical study done shows that the number one influence on child keeping their faith is the example of their fathers. Even though God is totally beyond being male or female, he does reveal himself as a father to humanity, so he expects men to take up the responsibility of modeling that in their love for their family.
Of course, everyone in the family has responsibilities. Paul’s exhortation to kindness and patience and mutual forgiveness is directed to every member of the family. The first reading reminds children of the importance of honoring their parents, even when they become old and feeble-minded. In everything, the goal is love. I often tell children in the confessional to thank God for their parents and siblings. I teach them that family members, especially difficult ones, are the first and best opportunity they have to learn how to love.
Let’s face it, family life is tough. You say things to parents and siblings you’d never utter to another human being. Our capacity to resent our family members is astounding. For most people, there are at least a few times in life when the thing you want most is to escape from your family. Besides the extreme cases of direct abuse, this desire to escape is wrong; we should not follow it.
Practically speaking, love in a broken world often means putting up with difficulty. It means enduring another person almost as much as it means caring about that person. You are born into a family and given a ready-made opportunity to put others first, to deal patiently with faults and quirks, and to see other’s weaknesses and wounds so that you can learn compassion.
The original design of God was simpler. A man loves a woman who receives his love and gives it back so that both of them produce life together. That’s still true, but now we also have the cross. Now there is the way that man and woman crucify each other with their faults. Besides the fruitfulness of children, there is self-sacrifice that children require from you… a sacrifice they’re often ungrateful for. And yet, if these trials are taken for the opportunity they are, they make you holier and, in turn, happier. The trials of family life are the first lessons of love.
And we don’t get to choose our family. But God did. He chose to be part of the human family, to endure all the trial that entails, and to do it with love. So the next time your family drives you crazy, instead of getting angry or resentful, force yourself to say “thank you” because, when you choose to love them anyway, it will mean all the more grace for you; because God chose you to be his family, though you certainly drive him crazy with your sins. Do it because, there are many who think they cannot be loved. And if you choose to love your difficult family in the tough moments, you will proclaim to the world that there is indeed a God who loves them, who chose to become part of the human family in order that no one might have to live without love.