HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH December 29, 2024

Readings: 1Samuel 1.20-22, 24-28  1 John 3.1-2, 21-24 Luke 2.41-52

Sometimes when we think of "family" we picture a mother and father and two or three small children - a quiet, compact family that you see in so many family pictures. But that is the shortest phase in family life and really doesn't last long.

The normal and longest phase is the adult family, and it's the most challenging phase. It requires a lot of virtue, a lot of small kindnesses that you hope will have an effect, but maybe they won't. You just try to be patient and understanding, and you do your best. You can't take over other people's lives, or evaluate them and tell them to improve, as in an employer-employee relationship. You just do your best to be kind. There's a famous poem by Robert Frost about the death of the hired hand. A man and a woman are on the porch of their farmhouse talking about an old hired hand who had returned that day, went to sleep in the barn, and died there. He had come home to die. The farm couple on the porch was talking about whether or not the old man had a home he could have gone to, and then they start talking about what it means to have a home. The man says: "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." The woman says, "I should have called it something you somehow haven't to deserve." I think the woman caught the heart of it. Home is the place where you receive a love and acceptance you don't have to earn.

On this Holy Family Sunday we remember that Jesus was part of an extended family, and that Jesus had a place he called home. It helps to realize that he experienced all that goes with this - the give and take, the imperfect relationships, and the need for patience, acceptance, and kindness.

Wishing you all a Blessed New Year 2025!

Fr. Terry