YOU ARE GOD’S CHOSEN RACE, HIS SAINTS!
A Blessed Feast of the Holy Family to everyone. Today is our Parish’s Patronal Feast; we rejoice & give thanks to God for blessing us these 100 years & making our Parish a Beacon in the East, bringing the light of Jesus Christ to everyone living in Katong & the nearby vicinity.
We are still in the Christmas season – today is the 7th Day in the Christmas Octave. And what an important occasion it is to have a renewed emphasis on Christian family life. As we all are aware, the family is under attack by the pervasiveness in our culture of materialism, individualism, secularism & relativism.
To face these real challenges encountered by the family, Pope St John Paul II asks all families in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the World) Number 17 to become more & more of what we are – a community of life & love.
The readings in our liturgy today show us how to live our family life as a community of life & love, following the example of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary & Joseph. Colossians 3 (2nd Reading of Year A) teaches us to treat each other in our family with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness & patience. We are asked to forgive each other & to love each other like how God in Christ has forgiven us & loves us. We are also to let Christ’s message lead & guide us, to always have gratitude in our hearts & to never do anything except in Jesus’ Name.
If you find the above very daunting and hard to achieve on your own self-will & effort, you are so right. So what can we do? I think it begins with a deep desire to place God as the Centre of our family life. We need to pray & ask for the help of the Holy Spirit to bless & guide our family, so that we can live our family life authentically. Let’s learn from the example of Simeon in today’s Gospel (see Luke 2:22-40) to always follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit to seek the Lord’s will in every decision & action we take as a family. We can also follow the example of the prophetess Anna in our Gospel today, who continually praised God & served Him wholeheartedly in the Temple, by our faith & trust in God, our prayers, works of service to & sacrifices for our family.
So, holy families of the Church of the Holy Family – Become What You Are! “God’s chosen race, His saints.” (cf Colossians 3:1)