The family is the basic building block of society, like bricks
in a wall. When we look at the concept
of family, we see that it is definitely part of God’s plan of salvation for humanity. Will we be open to God’s plan or not? The evil one is trying to destroy the family
so he can destroy society. When we look
around at all the ills in society, we see that the root of these ills is
usually some problem with the family. When
family members are at each other’s throats, usually someone in the family is living
outside the State of Grace.
We learn from others how to live, and God’s plan for this is
the family. It’s the setting where new
people experience life. It is also in
the family setting where people encounter God.
We hear in the Gospel today that the Holy Family had a custom of making
a pilgrimage to the temple for Passover every year. This is a call to action for parents. The only way the next generation will know
what is important is through the example of their parents. Children can pick up on what’s important just
like they pick up the language. Religious
customs are so important that Mary and Joseph even showed them to Jesus, and he
is God. Are the children being prepared
to be citizens of the Kingdom of God or merely citizens of the world?
Holiness is the goal.
Everything a parent does for a child should be out of love for the
child. If love means to do what is best
for another person, then a parent should make sure their children are on the
right track for becoming saints. Our
earthly life is very brief. Eternal life
with God is the ultimate good, and that should be the goal of every parent for
their children. Education and sports are good things too, but they should be
means to the end goal of eternal life, not ends in themselves. Getting children on the right track as
Christians is the work of the family.
This family setting fosters authentic human growth and
development. How do we know if it is
authentic? It leads to truth and love. And we move beyond ourselves and learn to be
in communion with others and with God. Grace
from the sacrament of marriage facilitates this task. It is poured upon the family at the marriage
of the mother and father. My family is
living proof if this grace. But I better
not tell any stories.
The key is to be open to this grace by being open to the
Holy Spirit, who pours out the love of the Father that is made visible to us in
Jesus Christ. Parents then make this
love visible in their lives. Not being
open to the work of the Holy Spirit leads to the ills that kill families. The family is crucial to the Christian life. Perhaps this is why Jesus says what he does
about divorce.
Then we encounter another list of tactics the evil one uses
to bring society down by making families weak:
Fornication leading to Single parenting or Abortion; Cohabitation
outside of marriage leading to a 75% divorce rate; Contraception and Sterilizations
tempting spouses to treating each other as objects; Lack of child supervision –
What are they watching on TV? What are
they doing with their smart phones?
The family is automatically holy because it is part of God’s
plan. But we remember that holy does not
mean perfect or automatically successful.
All families have their problems and crosses to bear. But what makes us holy is how we respond to
the problems that we face. Even the Holy
Family we celebrate today had their little mix-up we heard about in the Gospel. They remained holy because of their love for
God and each other. May all families
strive to do the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment