Thật là chuyện đau lòng khi chúng ta nghe hay chứng kiến những mầm mống dang dần dân làm cho nền tảng gia đình bị sụp đổ. Chúng ta cần phải có ý thức thực tế hơn về những nguyên nhân về tan vỡ gia đình , hiện tượng gia đình chỉ có mẹ mà không cha hay có cha mà không mẹ.. hay sự lạm dụng trẻ em, và nghiện ngập của cha mẹ. Kịch bản như thế đang xảy ra hàng ngày trong xã hội của chúng hôm nay đang ở mức đáng báo động vì những hậu quả sâu rộng của nó. Khi những bà mẹ, hay người cha hoặc có khi cả hai phải bỏ gia đình để con ở nhà cho ông bà nuôi nấng dậy dỗ còn họ thì đi kiếm tiền ở thành phố hay lao động ở nước ngoài. Đây có đáng là một nỗ lực cho chúng ta phải hy sinh gia đình không?
Tuy nhiên, sự hiểu biết về gia đình phải được mở rộng. Trọng tâm của cuộc sống gia đình của Chúa Giêsu và trọng tâm của sự mục vụ của ngài chính là Cha của Ngài. Mối quan hệ giữa Cha và Chúa Giêsu là việc quan trọng nhất trong cuộc đời của Ngài vì giúp Ngài định hướng được việc mục vụ của ngài và hỗ trợ cho Ngài. Sức mạnh để có thể chịu đựng được những đau khổ và cái chết của Ngài. Khi Chúa Giêsu mô tả gia đình của Ngài trong Kinh Thánh, Ngài phán rằng sự liên hệ gia đình đó không phải là một mối quan hệ máu mủ mà là một mối quan hệ trong sự trung thành với Lời Chúa. Đó là lý do tại sao Ngài đã thưa ". Mẹ và anh em ta là những ai biết nghe và sống thực hành Lời Chúa"
Cũng như Chúa Giêsu, chúng ta cũng thế, chúng ta được giao phó nhiệm vụ tập trung đời sống của chúng ta dựa trên Lời Chúa. Cho dù chúng ta sống một mình hoặc sống trong một gia đình, cho dù chúng ta có nhiều người thân thích hay sống cô đơn, chúng ta vẫn có thể là một phần tử mới trong gia đình mở rộng của Chúa Giêsu. Điều kiện duy nhất là chúng ta phải biết lắng nghe và biết sống và thực hiện Lời Chúa.
Chúng ta cầu nguyện với lòng biết ơn vì những hồng ân Chúa đã ban xuống cho mỗi gia đình của chúng ta trong ý nghĩa thông thường và trong cả ý nghĩa mở rộng của nó. Chúng ta cầu nguyện cho sự thân tình và sự hiệp nhất với nhau trong Chua Kitô để chúng ta có thể được trở nên nhân chứng cho tình yêu của Thiên Chúa.
It is disheartening to hear and see the gradual decimation and demise of the family. We are more aware of the realities of broken homes, the single parents' phenomenon, child abuse, and parental addictions. Such scenario is alarming because of its far-reaching consequences. When mothers, fathers or both have to leave their families to earn abroad, there are not only economic gains but also social costs. Is the effort worth it?
The family, no matter what its shortcomings and flaws are, remains the fundamental human connection. None of our families is holy and perfect; each is a combination of all sorts of conflicts, compulsions, and craziness that put to test our love and forgiveness. But in the midst of all that, God remains present. There is no other place to find Him. It is the place where He found us.
Yet the understanding of family has to be expanded. At the center of Jesus' family life and at the center of his ministry is his Father. That relationship is for Jesus the most important in his life because that gives him direction and support that will sustain him in his suffering and death. When Jesus describes his family in Scriptures, he says that it is not a relationship of blood but rather a relationship of fidelity to the Word of God. That is why he said: "My mother and brothers are those who hear the Word of God and hear it."
Like Jesus, we are thus tasked to focus our lives on the Word of God. Whether we live alone or in a family, whether we have many relatives or none, we can be all part of Jesus' new and expanded family. The only requirement is to hear the Word of God and fulfill it. Since Jesus extended his family, today's Feast of the Holy Family truly belongs to all of us. Look around then and see the people around us are indeed members of our family.
We then pray in gratitude for our respective families both in its usual and expanded meaning. We pray for a greater familiarity and unity of sense as we become better witnesses of God's love.
When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. Luke 2:39–40
By God’s providence and design, the family life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph was spoken of in the Scripture very little. We read of the birth of Jesus, the presentation in the Temple, the flight into Egypt and the finding of Jesus in the Temple at age twelve. But other than these stories of their life together, we know very little.
The line from today’s Gospel quoted above does, however, give us some insight worth pondering. First, we see that this family “fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord…” Though this is in reference to Jesus being presented in the Temple, it should also be understood to apply to all aspects of their life together. Family life, just like our individual lives, must be ordered by the laws of our Lord.
The primary law of the Lord regarding family life is that it must share in the very unity and “communion of love” found in the life of the Most Holy Trinity. Each person of the Holy Trinity has perfect respect for the other, gives selflessly to each other without reserve, and receives each person in their totality. It is their love that makes them one and enables them to act together in perfect harmony as a communion of divine Persons. Though Saint Joseph was not immaculate in his nature, the perfection of love did live in his divine Son and in his immaculate wife. This overwhelming gift of their perfect love would have daily drawn him into the perfection of their lives.
Ponder your own closest relationships today. If you are blessed with a close family, ponder them. If not, ponder the persons put into your life who you are called to love with familial love. Who are you to be there for in good times and in bad? Who are you to sacrifice your life for without reserve? Who are you to offer respect, compassion, time, energy, mercy, generosity and every other virtue? And how well do you fulfill this duty of love?
Reflect, today, upon the fact that God wants you to share in a communion of life, not only with the Most Holy Trinity but also with those around you, especially your family. Try to ponder the hidden life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and seek to make their family relationship the model for how you love others. May their perfect communion of love be a model for us all.
Lord, draw me into the life, love and communion that You lived with Your Immaculate Mother and Saint Joseph. I offer You myself, my family and all those to whom I am called to love with a special love. May I imitate Your family love and life in all my relationships. Help me to know how to change and grow so that I may more fully share in Your family life. Jesus, I trust in You.
1. Samuel and Jesus: The mystery of the finding of Jesus in the Temple recalls the story of Samuel in many ways. The mother of Samuel, Hannah, and the mother of Jesus, Mary, both sang similar songs (1 Samuel 2:1-10; Luke 1:46-55) after miraculously conceiving their children. Both songs emphasize how God casts down the prideful and arrogant and lifts up the lowly and humble. Hannah’s song looks forward to the coming of the future king and Messiah; Mary’s song rejoices in the fact that God has given Israel its long-awaited King, whom she now carries in her womb. Hannah brought her child, Samuel, to the Shrine in Shiloh; Mary brought her child, Jesus, to the Temple in Jerusalem. Neither Hannah nor Mary were said to redeem or buy back their children, implying that both children were dedicated or consecrated for priestly and prophetic service.
The Holy Family was a family who lived profound hope: Jesus, Mary and Joseph trusted completely in God. They call all of us to that same kind of trust. In our own time they stand beside all who worry and struggle, all who search and pray. The Holy Family stands besides parents anxious about their children, worrying for their welfare. They walk with immigrants and refugees separated from those they love. They comfort teen-age mothers and single parents. They console prisoners, the outcast, the bullied, the scorned – and the parents who love them. And they offer solace and compassion to parents grieving over the loss of their children.
The Holy Family shares our burdens and uplift us by their example. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were never alone: they endured any hardships through the grace of God; they prayed and hoped; they trusted in God's will and help. Surely we could ask where we can find the same kind of peace and purpose in our own families and lives.
An answer is given in Paul's letter to the Colossians. The second reading for today is at times used for weddings. Like Paul's letter to the Corinthians, it speaks of love. Paul was not writing about romantic love. Paul was writing about how to form a healthy and holy Christian community. From his words we can draw lessons about how to form a healthy and holy Christian family.
Paul tells us to put on compassion and kindness, lowliness and meekness, patience and forgiveness, and love. It is all that simple, or all that difficult. The Holy Family must have moments when living those virtues or ideals was hard. But they persisted; they listened to angels, dreamed and entrusted themselves fully to the hands of God.
We have a model for living in the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We need to see them in full, remembering the closeness of poverty, danger and the cross: we see the manger because there was no room in the inn; we see the flight into Egypt in fear for the Child's life; we see the anxiety over the loss of the twelve year old Boy. We see the quiet simple life in Nazareth where the Child Jesus was subject to his parents and "increased in wisdom and age, and in divine and human favor."
Through any challenge, anxiety, difficulty or danger, they showed us how to be people of faith, people of forgiveness, people of love.
The Holy Family teaches us how to be holy. They had happy times; they had difficult times. Through doubt and insecurity, in peace and joy, in good times and bad times they trusted in God. They did not understand Simeon's prophecy about the Child who would be "the rise or fall of the multitudes of Israel," who would "stand as a sign of contradiction while a sword would pierce [your] own soul." Though they did not understand their Child as in the loss and finding in the temple, they trusted and "kept all these things in their hearts."
Our own lives are similar, our present and future with similar doubts, questions and uncertainties, with good times and bad times. We hope we can live our lives with similar trust in God and love for one another.
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