Messy, Holy Families

St. Agnes Catholic Church
Feast of the Holy Family
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122924.cfm

Good evening / morning, St. Agnes, Merry Christmas and happy Feast of the Holy Family.  My maternal grandmother, Barbara Emrich, grew up in the Highlands.  She and her family lived in a little house on Princeton Dr. not far from where Bellarmine University is now.  Her father, Joe Emrich, was a railroad man, working for the old Louisville & Nashville or L&N company.  Her mother, Nona, stayed at home and raised 9 children.  

There were five boys and four girls in the Emrich family.  They were a deeply Catholic German family; two of the sons became priests and one of the daughters an Ursuline nun.  They embodied, in a way, an old model of what a Catholic family looked like.  

In that little house, the boys had one bedroom and the girls another and they  shared one, solitary bathroom.  My grandmother was the baby of the family.  She would describe her childhood in idyllic terms.  She always claimed, “We never fought. We always got along. There was perfect harmony among us.”  My grandfather would tease her about her recollection, about how impossible that was.  He jokingly called the Emrichs “the Holy Family.”  

 What’s interesting is that the actual Holy Family bears little resemblance to this sturdy, classic picture.   We have a married man and a woman—or at least a betrothed couple—in Mary and Joseph, true.   But Mary gets pregnant under unusual circumstances.  In the eyes of her neighbors, her pregnancy was likely suspicious or downright scandalous.  Soon after conception, she slipped off to her cousin’s house in the hills of Judea, perhaps to hide her condition.  

Traditionally, some Catholic interpreters have suggested that there was a large age differential between Mary and Joseph as well.  This is based on two details in Scripture: first Joseph disappears from the Gospel after the childhood story that we heard today.  He is not present when Jesus comes to Nazareth during his ministry or during Jesus’ Passion.  This suggests he probably died before Jesus’ ministry began.  Second, the Gospel mentions Jesus’ “brothers and sisters” in several places; at least four named brothers and two sisters.  These may have been cousins—the Greek word is ambivalent—but another traditional belief is that these were Jesus’ step-siblings.  That Joseph was a widower before his relationship with Mary and that he’d had children in that first marriage.  Add to this the knowledge that Joseph and Mary had a celibate marriage, and you have a very unusual family. We might call it a mixed family or a non-traditional family (ironically).

We know almost nothing about Jesus’ family life and nothing about the years before his adulthood and public ministry except for the Gospel passage we have heard today.  Though he was sinless, we might imagine that Jesus was a difficult child and teenager.  Imagine what it might be like to raise the savior!  In the Gospel today, we get a kind of Biblical version of Home Alone. 12-year old Jesus opts to stick around in Jerusalem after Passover without telling Joseph and Mary what he’s doing.  They assume he is with the big caravan of extended family and only notice his absence after a day.  I like to picture Mary having a moment like Kevin McAllister’s mom in the movie when she finally notices that Jesus is missing.  What did we forget, “Jesus!”  

We also see hints in the Gospel that Jesus didn’t get along well with his extended family at Nazareth.  None of his brothers and sisters are named among his followers during his ministry and he faced serious resistance when he came home as an adult.  His relatives saw his miracles as evidence of him being out of his mind (Mark 3:21).  For his part, Jesus said that his true family was not his biological kinfolk.  Instead, he said, “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:50).

Only after his death and resurrection did Jesus’ family and extended kin come to believe in him and become a part of the Christian movement.   Two of his family members named James and Jude became important leaders in the early Church.  Jesus’ own holy family continued to grow, to forgive, and exist in its own messiness after his death.  That should give us hope for ourselves and our families.     

What else can we take from all this? Well, first, that there are and were lots of different kinds of holy families, even in antiquity and in Jesus’ own lineage.  Though we might look at a particular model like the Emrichs—a married man and a woman that begin a nuclear family with children—as the ideal, that is not the only way to be family; it is not the only template of domestic holiness.  Every family is messy, every family is different, every family is very human. 

We are called to embrace that complexity by loving each other, forgiving each other, listening to each other, being gentle, and humble and patient with each other, especially when we don’t want to.  You can hear these instructions in the second reading from Colossians today. Pope Francis wrote, “No family drops down from heaven perfectly formed; families need constantly to grow and mature in the ability to love. (Amoris Laetitia).” 

This is a call to each of us to expand our conception of who our family includes, and to be intentional in reaching out to everyone, particularly those who might be feeling disconnection like those who are single, widows or widowers, who are LGBTQ, or those who are shut-in. How can we show others that they belong, that they have a seat at the table? It might be an invite to dinner, or to mass, visiting them or write a text message.   We might all consider a New Year’s resolution to build up the family of God whether they be biological family or chosen family.    

The Holy Father also called the Church a “family of families.”  We are all familiar with the metaphor of the “Body of Christ” from St. Paul, but the image of the Church as the “Family of God” is another frequent image in Scripture.  Through our baptisms, we have all become the adopted children in God’s family.  This family stretches across racial, cultural and linguistic lines.  Each of us belongs in this family.  

As we contemplate the story of Jesus’ Holy Family this weekend, and as continue to celebrate the Christmas season, may we all embrace the holiness and the messiness of our own holy families.  God bless you.