Posted on December 29, 2023 View all Gospel Reflection
The Holy Family was holy but each one had their challenges.
Don’t forget Mary’s question—“Child, why have you done this to us?” (Luke 2:48) when Jesus stayed behind in the temple. This childhood account of Jesus being lost for three days constructs a framework for finding meaning in the confusion of the parents of Jesus.
St. Luke, in this bible passage does not attempt to resolve it. Rather, empathy is the goal. It ends with Mary treasuring all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Mary’s capacity for introverted experiences may well have contributed to Christ’s undoubted wide-ranging capacity to feel and respond. And Luke 2:51 tells us that Jesus returns home to Nazareth “and was obedient to them.”1
The members of a Christian family must influence, support, and challenge each other to mature in holiness.
In our Gospel today from Luke 2:21-24, Mary and Joseph are arranging Jesus’ circumcision and presentation ritual at the Temple as the routine fulfillment of ordinary covenant obligations for a Jewish family.
So many families start to get holier when one person in the family began going to daily Mass. My Mom first started going to daily Mass before work for 20 years. After retirement, my Dad joined her. That laid a foundation for us kids as well as praying the rosary together as a family on occasion.
As a society and even within some Christian denominations, divorce and remarriage is accepted, as well as contraception, and abortion. A family nevertheless is still as holy as it wants to be. It just has to exert more effort today.
e.g. Gay Pride
The Catechism says in no. 2358 says that people who have same sex attraction should be treated with respect, compassion, and sensitivity, and that that homosexual acts are gravely wrong and intrinsically disordered. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
However, the near unanimous consensus of the people who fly the rainbow Pride flag or put it on social media is the promotion of homosexual conduct, transgender identity, the nature of marriage and basic gay promotion.
The Cross of Christ is the symbol of love.
Pride is the queen of sin, the Scripture and the Saints say, “For pride is the beginning of all sin” (Sirach 10:15).
For those who say “love is love.” Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
Our heart is not a good barometer for how we stand before God. And so, we have to let God tell us through his revelation, he’s given us a sacred scripture tradition and the Church he established.
Galatians 6:7-8 says, make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.
What should a parent teach their child? Be in the state of grace. Tell them, Jesus eat with sinners, and he said, “A physician does not come to heal the healthy but heal the sick.” So, Jesus also called them to conversion.
What to tell a gay person who asks you what you think?
Tell them, “Well, my faith tradition makes a distinction between someone’s desires and someone’s actions. We can’t control our desires, and so they shouldn’t be central to our identity. You also can’t say someone is sinning just because they have certain attractions because it is the actions that count for sin. Tell them about Courage, which is an international Catholic support group whose members are men and women who experience same-sex attractions and who have made a commitment to strive for chastity.
1. Christopher A. Frilingos, Parents just don’t understand; Harvard Theological Review, 109 no 1 Jan 2016, p 33-55
