Homily #147: "Imitate the Holy Family" (During a Time of Decline of Catholic Church in the West)

Audio for Sun., 10am Mass [#147b]

Audio for Sun. 5pm Mass [147c]

Audio for Sat. 5pm Mass [#147a]

 Homily #147:

Imitate the Holy Family 

(During a Time of Decline of Catholic Church in the West)

As we continue to celebrate Christmas today on the Feast of the Holy Family, I will focus on three ways to deepen our love for and imitate each member of the Holy Family: Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Father prayed in the Opening Prayer or Collect of the Mass that we may imitate the Holy Family.

By living ordinary family life for 33 years, most of which was hidden from the public, God reveals that salvation not only comes through the Holy Family 2000 years ago back then, but salvation passes by way of every Christian family that adores the Newborn King today.  So goes the family, so goes the Church, and so goes the Church, so goes the world.  (The Church is the only institution capable of fighting and defeating evil.)  If we want peace in the world, if we want justice and the end to violence and lack of charity in people’s hearts, then let us ask the Holy Family to make our families holy. 

The Jesuit priest Fr. John Hardon, S.J., said that only heroic Catholic families will survive the spiritual devastation the Church is now experiencing.  And, unfortunately, diocese after diocese rafter diocese reports multiple disastrous declines at all levels of Catholic family life and faith formation.  I have seen the reports with my own eyes (for the English-speaking West): Infant baptisms in decline; First Communions and Confirmation in decline; marriages in decline; RCIA in decline; mass attendance in decline.  In such times of tribulation, the Church cries out, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, help us!”  So let us now ponder each member of the Holy Family.    

I

First, let’s start with imitating the Boy Jesus in today’s Gospel.  Our love for this Holy Child, this Santo Nino, in the Temple, is deepened when we have a childlike trust to dare call God Our Father in the midst of the Church.  As we chanted in the Responsorial Psalm, “Blessed are they who dwell in the house of the Lord!”  God is Our Father when we first and foremost receive the 7 Sacraments of the New Temple, the Church, on a regular basis.  The Boy Jesus, even at age 12, was already aware and conscious, he knew that He was the unique Son of God the Father.  Jesus didn’t just somehow “discover” this at age 30.  When Jesus’ mother asked him, “Son, why have you done this to us?  Your father (Joseph) and I have been looking for you with great anxiety,” the Boy Jesus replied, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  My. Father’s. House.  There are no words clearer words in Scripture to reveal that Jesus knew that he was not the natural son of Joseph and that Joseph rather was his earthly foster father.  

And while we are not the only-begotten Son of the Father as the Boy Jesus is, we are adopted sons and daughters of Our Heavenly Father, as we heard in today’s Second Reading: “See what love the Father has for you in calling us his children, for so indeed we are.”  And children of Our Father, we can invite our family members and extended family members if they have completed their Sacraments.  This is a great way to bring others to God.  We too invite others with the words: Do you know not that we too must be in our Father’s house worshipping him in the Sacraments?  With the help of the Holy Family, let’s reverse the mass apostasy or people leaving the practice of their sacraments today!  [We don’t want to be CEO Catholics—“Christmas-Easter-Only” Catholics, but Catholics who regularly frequent the Sacraments.]

II.

Second, let’s look at Mary.  Even though she didn’t fully understand what Jesus said, Mary still reflected on all these things that happened to her in her heart.  The Gospel of Luke says, “[A]nd his mother kept all these things in her heart.”  This heart of Mary, this pure Heart of the Immaculate One, deserves our attention and devotion.  You know, there’s a half-joke saying that Christmas is a time when Protestants start talking like Catholics all of a sudden because it is the one day in the year when they focus on Mary and the Nativity with love and devotion.  But to truly love the Bible, the Word of God, then we must imitate the Mother of the Word of God.  And one way to be like this Mother of the Eucharist is to come to church outside of Mass times and sit with Jesus in the Tabernacle for a few minutes.  Simply reflecting on the Eternal Word of God with the Blessed Sacrament in silent Adoration is a way to ponder the great things God has done for you in your own heart.  (Here at St. Catherine’s the Blessed Sacrament is exposed on Wednesday and Confession is available in the evening.)

Another way to grow closer to the mother of Jesus is to do a consecration or entrustment to her Immaculate Heart.  A consecration or entrustment means that something or someone is specially reserved for service to the Immaculate Heart.  Mother knows best, after all, and she knows how to make our gift most pleasing to the Baby Jesus.  Using sacramentals like a brown scapular or a miraculous medal or having a crucifix or picture of Jesus and Mary are other ways to consecrate ourselves to her heart.  St. Louis Marie de promoted that “To Jesus Through Mary” was the quickest way to holiness, to be saint! And of course, we can heed her call to pray the daily rosary as children of so great a mother with so loving a heart.

III.

Finally, let us imitate St. Joseph.  In the Gospels, Joseph was a righteous man who the Boy Jesus obeyed growing up in Nazareth.  Joseph too was righteous because he obeyed the 10 Commandments and followed God’s will through many trials.  Like him, let us too love God’s commandments and the precepts of the Church.  And just as Joseph was the silent strength and Guardian of the Redeemer and Protector of the Holy Family, we too, especially us men, are given an example of our call to defend and sacrifice.  [Depart from text with special appeal to men in congregation in light of current efforts to attack fatherhood and diabolical attempts to redefine the family according to God's plan for family.] His humility as the Patron of the Universal Church is also model for us to serve not just our families but those in need of help with not just words but with actions.  [One act of love surpasses a thousand eloquent words about love.]  Those of us who care for others that have no father figures, or those workers who provide food on the table, or caregivers of the poor and sick can follow Joseph the worker-carpenter.  St. Joseph is also called the Patron Saint of a Happy Death, which means that we can ask him for the grace to have a Christian death where we die in the state of grace.  It was said that both Jesus and Mary were present when Joseph died.  [Some mystics have said that Joseph’s dead body remains incorrupt and preserved over time in a hidden tomb under Bethlehem.]

In summary, we have looked at ways to imitate the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  May we love them with tender heart-felt devotion in our own families, our parish family, and in the universal Family of God.  Let us ask for their intercession today and until the end of time.  Holy Family of Nazareth, pray for us.  Amen.