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December 27, 2020Some might think that the celebration of the Holy Family means that our families – whether spiritual, natural, blended, ecclesial, or global – are called to be as perfect and ideal as we assume was the case for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. However, our gospel today reveals a different image of holiness. As the couple presented Jesus in the temple, the devout Simeon praised God for the gift of the child but also announced the difficulties they would face as a family. What lay in the future for the family was exile from their homeland, a child who was lost, whisperings, questions, condemnation, and eventually crucifixion. These issues are not exactly the making of a perfect and ideal family life. But through it all, the Holy Family kept their faith in God, for they believed what the letter to the Hebrews proclaims, that “the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.”
The challenge of the feast of the Holy Family is for us to let go of the impression that we need to be perfect in order to be holy. Holiness is not about our never doing the wrong thing. It is not about our never questioning what is happening in our lives. It is not about nothing bad ever happening to us. Holiness, however, does have everything to do with faithfulness and believing in the promise of Christmas, that God is with us. What makes us and our families holy is allowing grace – the very presence and love of the Lord – to enter the tensions and struggles of our lives, so that they (and we) can be transformed and be a sign of how life is meant to be.
The journey of life begins and ends, for better or for worse, with family in all of its manifestations, in all of its sweetness and innocence, in all of its struggle and pain. Lived in love and faithfulness, it need not be a Christmas card image. Lived in holiness, it becomes the experience of what life is, the promise of Christmas – the reality that God is always and everywhere with us.