God's family

The meaning of human life begins with FAMILY, either one’s natural or surrogate family. And the sustaining power of family life is LOVE. For the longest time, the spirituality of family life was taken for granted, even by the institutional Church, as led by male celibates. Today, we have become deeply aware of the greatness and centrality of family spirituality. A special Feast of the Holy Family has been instituted by the Church, and this is what we are commemorating today.

When God decided to be one with us and among us, He could have come to us already as an adult. But He decided to be with us all the way, and so He came as an Infant in His mother’s womb, all the way to birth, childhood, and adulthood. God-the-Son to a virgin-mother and a foster-father. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. God’s family as the inspiring role-model to all humanity. Thus, every human family who follows the spirituality of the Holy Family is likewise God’s family.

The historical family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is called “Holy Family,” not because they knelt down together and prayed for many more hours every day than other families did; or went to the temple more often than other families did. Not because they went to Bible Services or Holy Mass and Communion more often than other families did. First of all, there were no such rituals during their lifetime. So it could not have been the multiplication of those devotions that made them holy. What, then, really made them a “Holy Family”?

The answer is simple but profound, and often taken for granted or ignored by many of us today, in our tendency to be more ritualistic rather than experiential in our approach to institutional or denominational religion. As one well-known father and author puts it, what made Joseph, Mary, and Jesus a holy family was their finding God’s loving presence in everything they did for one another. This is what he calls the Sacred in the Ordinary. The Sacrament of the Routine. The Liturgy of Daily Life.

What does he mean? “The disciples were called to follow Jesus, Mary and Joseph were called to feed him; the disciples were called to learn from Jesus, Mary and Joseph were called to teach him to speak; the disciples to stand beside Jesus, Mary and Joseph to help him to stand; the disciples were called to suffer with Jesus the pain of his death so that he might give the gift of life. Mary and Joseph were called to share for him the pain of birth so that he might give the gift of life.” (E. Boyer, Finding God at Home).  

Without this family life, so ordinary and routine for more than thirty years there would have been no Christ the Prophet, no Christ the Man of Compassion, no Christ the Savior. Where do you think he first learned about the spirituality of love, justice, and peace if not from Mary and Joseph? He never went to a university where he earned a Ph.D. in spirituality, did he?

Moreover, the Holy Family was not spared from trials and sufferings. Early on, the Christ Child’s life was threatened by Herod. Later, the Holy Family had to become displaced persons in a foreign land until the danger had passed. (Mt. 2: 13-15, 19-23). They were a poor family who lived and worked among other poor families. They knew what it was like to live in a country where the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. They knew what it was like to struggle in making both ends meet, not because this was the design of the all-loving God, but because of man’s inhumanity to man.

Until Jesus came of age as a young man. Armed with the human qualities and values he had picked up from his parents, and the deep compassion he felt for the poor and disadvantaged he vowed to dedicate his life for them. He began a movement that centered on God’s love and justice for all. Thus he became the forerunner of active, non-violent advocacy work for faith and justice, until his last breath.

But before his sudden and glorious death, he passed on his mission to all who choose to be his committed disciples — from families to communities, from generation to generation. And now, as we have entered the third millennium, the mission continues. Family spirituality that begins but does not end within the home. The mission of faith and justice against a Godless globalization of the world’s economy, for the insatiable greed of world-powers, at the expense and slow death of poor peoples and countries. Moreover, a family spirituality that will courageously fight other forms of violence, like that recent brutal massacre in Maguindanao. Quite ironically, such violence seems to be allegedly committed in the name of family!

Dear Families: Let us hold on to the one, guiding principle in family spirituality till the end of our lives: Love and Justice that move toward Peace. This is what the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived and died for.