Holy Family Homily

This past Wednesday we celebrated with great joy the reality of a love so great that God was willing to take on human flesh in the second person of the Holy Trinity. Today we continue to dwell with this glimpse of love by directing our attention towards the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. These three individuals show to us the true meaning of responding to one's vocation in life and thus accepting it to its fullest. We have heard time and time again that we live in the midst of a vocation crisis. I want to echo this notion because it is true. Here I am not only speaking about vocations to the priesthood & religious life, but also about the sacrament of marriage and thus the living out of the family. For us to rediscover our vocation we must begin with God and His will in our life. We cannot solely base a vocation upon the passing untested feeling of "love." Once we respond to a vocation with our life we must all constantly reconnect ourselves not to the passing world, but to God. It is in God that we will discover true love.

In our world we see the breakdown of being able to commit ourselves to a vocation. Instead of a vocation, such as marriage, being an unending covenant between a man and a woman it has become something that can be entered into and out of at one's own will. Instead of being able to embrace pure conjugal love which truly connects a man and a woman to God our culture embraces passion as an end in itself. In recent years there has been a desire to redefine marriage because we see our vocation as a feeling and not as something that opens us up to the giving of life. Our world has become so busy with work and our own interests that we often forget about the importance of coming together as a family to enter into prayer. We get so caught up in the rush of the world that we forget about our vocation always leading us to Heaven. We also forget in this rush the many people whom we encounter through our vocation, be they a spouse or a child, and how we should also be leading them to Heaven.

And so with these many stumbling blocks placed in our way we look towards the Holy Family. In the Holy Family we see a response to a vocation made out of true love and we see how this plays itself out in the life of the family. We know that all three members of the Holy Family would give their "yes" to God time and time again. Mary gave her "yes" to an angel which allowed the second person of the Holy Trinity to enter into the world. Joseph gave his "yes" through his response of doing what the angel of the Lord had commanded him. Jesus would give His "yes" through entering into His public ministry and eventual passion, death, and resurrection. Their "yes" was not given out of obtaining wordily pleasure, but instead was given for the glory of God. The Holy Family leads us with the example of living out the virtues, that marriage is indeed a sacred and stable institution, that life is not something to be feared, that we must be connected to God in prayer, and that all us have a vocation to which we must respond to with our own unending "yes."

We can say that the Holy Family is the perfect place to begin to design the "domestic church" of our own homes. The "domestic church" goes hand in hand with the teachings of the Church and hands them on to all family members involved. This means attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on every single Sunday because the Eucharist must be central to the family life. This means realizing that we are all sinful and thus coming to lineup in the confessional line as a family. This means taking time out of the busy schedule of the day to pray as a family, to study Sacred Scripture, and the teachings of the Church. This means being an example and enforcer of the virtues to our own family and all those whom we encounter. This means promoting the reality of the "yes" that we must all give to God to follow our vocation in life. 

If we truly want to pass on the faith to our children, to get one another to Heaven, or to reform society's understanding of marriage and thus the family life we must reestablish the "domestic church" as based upon the Holy Family. The following excerpt comes from Father Brett Brannen's "To save a Thousand Souls" and is written for the purpose of priesthood discernment. I believe this short story leaves us with the purpose of any vocation which of course should be exhibited within the family life. Let us also pay close attention to its closing statement because this is where any vocation should be leading us.: 

"John, what will you be doing when you grow up? " I replied, "Monsignor, I am still not certain but thinking about going into medicine. I would like to become a doctor." And the pastor replied, "Good. Good. And what will you do after that?" I said, "Well I suppose I will marry and have a family of my own." The priest said, "Good, and what after that?" Not sure exactly where he was going with this line of questioning, I replied, "I guess I will grow old, practicing medicine and eventually retire. And then I guess I will die and go to heaven." The pastor nodded his head knowingly, thoughtfully and he was quiet for a few seconds. Then he looked at me earnestly and said, "And who will you bring with you into heaven?"