A FAMILY THAT STANDS TOGETHER
2017, Britain’s Got Talent, The Missing People Choir:
‘My son’s been missing since 1988.’
‘My son Quentin went missing when he was 18…just walked away from the family home…’
‘My son Charles went missing 27 years ago.’
‘There isn’t a minute when your mind is free from the pain and heartache.’
The shocked audience listened in rapt attention as members of The Missing People Choir told the stories of how their children or loved ones had gone missing and were still lost – some for more than 20 years. They stood of the stage of Britain’s Got Talent and sang with their hearts in their voices, as photos of the missing people they loved appeared behind them.
It takes just a few seconds of you turning away for the child beside you to disappear. Maybe some of you have gone through that horrible experience as a parent, guardian, or teacher. You know that sinking feeling of dread as panic sets in. The nightmare of frantically searching for them. The absolute joy when you find them.
Then most likely wanting to yell at them to never do it again and what were they thinking?!
Mary and Joseph experienced the same when they lost the boy Jesus. But He was starting His mission and had to be about His Father’s business. Although they didn’t get it, His parents had complete trust in God, and His mother ‘kept all these things in her heart’.
Hannah had pretty much the same trust in God. She’d wanted a child for so long and God gave her Samuel. She in turn gave him back to God (I’m wondering here how many frustrated parents think of doing the same when their kids drive them up the wall…). It takes a selfless family to say goodbye to one of their own and offer them up, for the rest of their lives – as priests, religious, missionaries.
It’s not easy to continue to stand together as a family when one member leaves for good, or loses their way physically, spiritually, mentally, or emotionally. Our loved ones can get lost to worldly attractions or addictions, or alternative lifestyles that are against what we believe as children of God. We might fracture as a family because of internal dissent, abuse, even violence. There are many split families – families only in the loosest sense of the word – living separately from one another, growing up with different parents or parental figures. They can go whole generations in this way. For some, it becomes the norm. Marriage, family life, sibling relationships – these can look very different to what we see among Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
The truth is, while we acknowledge the perfect, God-given family path we should take, as much as we desire to emulate the Holy Family, what if it seems impossible for some? What if children cannot respect and love parents who abuse or neglect them? What if parents suffer the same from their spouses or children, and find it hard to continue suffering in silence? What if we cannot do as 1 John says, to ‘love one another just as he commanded us’? We prayed in today’s Collect for God to help us in ‘practicing the virtues of family life and in the bonds of charity’. What if the struggle is too hard?
‘We’re all in this together and we stand by each other.’ ‘Having the support of each other makes us stronger.’
Like Mary and Joseph raising the child Jesus, the families into which we are born should give us that sense of belonging, safety, protection; it should teach us our first lessons of love and virtue. It should lead us along the path to God by way of the Sacraments and Church teachings. It should evoke in us the joy of mutual support, kindness, and a strong, comforting bond.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen in every family.
The good news is God has blessed us with a larger family – our extended families, guardians, our parish, our neighbourhood communities. We are, each one of us, responsible for providing the shortfall within families. As we belong to God, we belong to one another. The Missing People Choir know that first-hand: when they grow weary of their pain and heartache, their larger community family is there to catch them. That makes them stronger. Then they’re able to continue to search for their missing loved ones, much like the shepherd who lost his one sheep; much like our Lord who relentlessly, persistently hunts down our missing Christian brethren who’ve wandered far from Him.
In 1921, three years after World War I, Pope Benedict XV placed the Feast of the Holy Family in the Church calendar. It gave the Catholic world a special day to pray for strength for the family, the foundation of society, against secularism and new ideologies that threatened the faith of believers. At our parish, we’re thrilled that for us, it’s a very special day, because Jesus and His parents are our particular guardians. So we have a special mission: to lead the way for others to emulate them. We should be looking upon our parish members as our very own brothers, sisters, parents, and elderly relatives, getting to know them, ensuring they’re doing well, supporting them in their suffering, giving them comfort, bringing them joy.
We should be the extended family of those parishioners whose own families aren’t providing for the physical, spiritual, mental, or emotional needs. The Missing People’s Choir said, ‘Singing together makes us super strong. It’s inspirational. It’s good for the soul.’ We should do that for our parishioners: celebrate their good times with them, share in the bad ones. When you don’t have a family of your own – and how many of our parishioners don’t, do you know? – or when your home isn’t the haven of Godly peace and communion that He wants it to be, you should feel that warm welcome and communion among the people of our parish.
It’s interesting that in Luke’s Gospel text today, Mary and Joseph aren’t mentioned by name, but by their titles as mother and father. She calls Jesus my Child. The focus is on their relationship to one another. They are family through both a divine and human bond. Pope John Paul II, in 1981, said in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) that the family is the domestic church playing its role in fostering prayer, teaching the faith, and nurturing Christian virtues. He said that in the family, the Christian faith is first proclaimed to children, making the family vital to the mission of the Church, and the most fundamental institution in the world.
That’s what the Holy Family stood for. The kindness, respect, obedience, unity, charity, and love they practised every day is the model for Christian living and for family life.
We’re Holy Family in name. We must be that in practice, too.
‘We all have to live in hope. If there's no hope, what would we have to live for?’
More than ever, the Holy Family is both a beacon of hope among dysfunctional or hurting families, and a shining example for families that continue to live by God’s grace. For our own families and for one another in our parish, we need to remember that God has given us as gifts for one another. Hannah knew that. John’s letter today confirms that. He reminds us to ‘Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children, and that is what we are’ (1 Jn 3:1-2).
In the end, that’s our true identity. That’s who we are. The challenge is to not take that identity for granted, so each day, we must ‘live the kind of life that pleases God’ (1 Jn 3:22).
‘We all have a common goal: to find our missing loved ones and bring them home where they belong.’
The Holy Trinity and the Holy Family are our best models as we travel in family packs towards home. Different in essence, but with the same goals, the same virtues. Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that Jesus had direct knowledge of the Beatific Vision from the moment of His conception and had the fullness of infused knowledge. Yet He let Himself be taught and raised by a human family that wasn’t free from the same types of challenges we face. They showed us how tensions in a family can be resolved through listening, reflecting and accepting. In times of crises or dissent, we need to have faith and courage to be the one to swallow pride, speak up in love, step back, or gently reprimand. We need to guard the flame of holiness that started at marriage and grew with the birth of children.
We must return to the humble house in Nazareth and seek the counsel of the Holy Family. We must constantly deepen in faith, like Hannah and Mary, to be the Spirit-led influence for holiness in our individual and larger families. We must grow in courage to live as the Church teaches and to stand by Christian virtues, and to foster these in one another.
As we journey through the Christmas season with the Holy Family, let’s take today to reflect how Mother Mary and Saint Joseph might look upon our families, what they might advise us to change or strengthen. Think of the environment our Lord Jesus would have had, if He had lived in our homes, instead. Pray a special thanks to them for blessing us with their protection, and ask for the faith and courage you need for you and your loved ones.
May Jesus, Mary and Joseph guide you and your families through the coming new year, help you to find your lost loved ones, and fan the flame of God’s love and peace within your homes.
Article by Joyce Norma, HFC Blog Contributor