Becoming a Holy Family
I used to try and use the number of siblings I have as a way to impress my classmates in grade school. “I have two siblings,” they’d offer, “how many siblings do you have?”
“I’ve got five!” I would blurt out. Clearly, five is bigger and better than two. And back then, in my mind, that made me much cooler than everyone else. You can imagine how excited I was to announce to them when my youngest brother was born. That made six!
My first year of college is gave me a huge reality check. I met so many classmates at the Catholic university I attended that had upwards of ten to twelve siblings! I was indeed impressed. Yet, I have learned, the number of siblings we have does not mean we’re better than one another. In fact, Christ himself says we are all his siblings! “I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (Jn 17:23). If you’re like me, you may have to read that again to let it sink in… yet how wonderful those words are! Christ tells us that God the Father loves us just as he loves Christ, his only begotten Son. We, too, are his children! One big holy family, if I may.
Not only did hearing about other big families change my view of my own family as I continued through college, it began in me my own deeper understanding about what being part of a family means. I don’t recall where I first heard the phrase, “the family is the building block of society,” but it sure sounds a lot like what’s in the Catechism: “The family is the original cell of social life” (CCC 2207). If the family is unstable, so too is society. It is within our families that we first learn how to be human. We learn to talk, to walk, and to understand what is “normal.” My main area of study in college was Communication, so naturally we covered a lot about how people interact with each other. So when I say “normal,” that is usually what we use to refer to things that we as a society have set as “norms.” These are things that may not always be spoken about out loud, yet most of us know what they are anyway. Some even use these norms as rules to govern their behavior and daily lives.
Think of children and how often adults may scold, question, or wonder about their behavior because they aren’t following certain norms. “Don’t ask them about their hair!” or “We don’t ask people how much money they make!” Or, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety” (Lk 2:48). We don’t do certain things because we as a society have decided they aren’t proper. Yet, to a child, these things make no sense. They have yet to be taught these “norms.” Christ already knows what is more important and true than any human norm that we may set. Showing us, even at this point in his life, that he is aware of the Divine in him, of his relationship to his father, he answers “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house” (Lk 2:49). Mary and Joseph were not scolding him but simply wondering why he had stayed there and not left with them. They did not yet fully understand what the Christ-child was revealing to them.
On this Solemnity of the Holy Family, we may try to think that we’re much too far away from the standard, or norm, of what a holy family should look like. But remember, Mary and Joseph didn’t always understand either. Mary wondered, Joseph was worried and unsure about what God was calling him to do, and they accidentally left Jesus behind at the temple for three days! What makes the Holy Family different from our families? Really, there is not much.
Think of Mary, full of grace, born of an immaculate conception. Think of Joseph, visited by an angel, obedient to God’s beautiful plan for him and his family. The Catechism states, “Children in turn contribute to the growth in holiness of their parents” (CCC 2227). And how perfectly true this is in the example of the Holy Family. It is the grace poured out from God the Father, through the passion, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus that makes possible the Immaculate Conception of Mary. I had heard in Mass once of this “prevenient grace” bestowed upon Mary. Or in Latin, “gratia praeveniens,” which literally means “grace that precedes.” The grace of God through Christ Jesus sanctifies Mary; she is full of that very grace. It is that same grace that moves in the heart of Joseph to hear and listen and act on God’s word spoken to him.
God, our Father, is constantly pouring out these same graces to us. This is where we can differ. It is up to us to receive them. It is up to us to open our arms to receive the gift he so freely gives. No matter the amount of siblings we have, Christ remains our brother and God remains our good Father. Through every miraculous birth and blessed adoption, with Mother Mary and St. Joseph as our guides, the grace to be a holy family comes from the Lord.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph: Pray for us!