Holy Family

For the holiness of families

On the Sunday between Christmas and the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family.  During this time when many if not most of us take time to spend with our families, it is right that we should venerate the Holy Family: Jesus, his mother Mary and his foster-father Joseph.  In fact, the Holy Family has been celebrated in this way since the 17^th century.  One of the first promoters of this Feast was Blessed François de Laval, the first Bishop of Quebec, then known as New France.

Every year, when this day arrives, we think of the members of our own families.  We give thanks for the joys we have shared with them over the past year, and we pray for God’s protection for them in the coming year.  The society in which we live these days recognizes the fact that family units come in all shapes and sizes: there are nuclear families, made up of fathers, mothers and their children; there are families composed of step-parents and children; there are family units which include multi-generations, and there are family units made up of single parents who share custody of their dependent children.  The modern-day Canadian culture also makes room for other units which it refers to as ‘families’, including common law partners and more recently, same-sex couples.  One thing is true: the definition of the family unit has become more and more complicated in recent decades, and as a result it is that much more important that we need guidance in order to understand the wisdom of today’s feast.

Like all the Saints, the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph provide an example for us.  There is wisdom to be gained from their words and actions, but the question remains: what precise lessons can we learn from the Holy Family, and how can we apply them to our own families?

Family life is never perfect.  While there are many instances where we find comfort, solace, guidance and strength in our families, there can also be moments of worry and suffering.  We worry about the ones we love the most, we suffer because of this love, and we often learn some valuable lessons about life and about ourselves from the way we interact with the members of our families.

The Holy Family can teach us how to be holy.  Mary and Joseph must truly have been special people.  On one hand, they had been asked to guide and to teach Jesus the lessons that would make him the man he would become, but on the other hand, his humanity was only a part of his entirety.  Tradition also teaches that Jesus was fully divine, so there must have been moments when his parents were acutely aware that they were teachers but also students in the presence of the Master.  When Mary and Joseph discovered that Jesus was not in the caravan that had left Jerusalem, they worried about him, they went back to Jerusalem in search of him, but they didn’t appear to blame one another.  Instead, perhaps they understood this as one of those moments when they themselves became the pupils.  Maybe this is the reason why when they eventually found him, they didn’t scold him; rather they took this opportunity to explain their worry, and to clarify the expectations that they had of him.

As for the young Jesus, staying behind to talk with the elders and teachers made sense to him.  At age 12, a Jewish boy celebrates his Bar Mitzvah and assumes responsibility for his faith.  Catholics too, in many cases celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation around this age, and we believe that those who participate in this sacrament are henceforth responsible for their own faith development.  Like many young people his age, Jesus was excited about this new responsibility, so excited in fact that he forgot to communicate with his parents, to tell them that he was staying behind.  Even though he may have been keen to exercise this new-found freedom, he was not yet fully equipped for adult life, so having recognized his parents’ concern, and because he knew that he was well loved, he returned home with them.  Through the rest of his adolescent years, he continued to grow in wisdom. 

I wonder what other lessons Mary and Joseph learned.  Some but not all of them are described in the scriptures.  I wonder what other wisdom Jesus may have learned from his parents.  I wonder whether they were all that different from the lessons that all teenagers learn from loving parents and from caring adults who teach them by word and example how to be responsible, faith-filled human beings.

May Joseph and Mary intercede for us today, and may the Holy Family always provide for us an example of the holiness that is possible in all our families as we strive to be the best of teachers for our children.  May we also never be afraid to learn from our children, for wisdom is born from the realization that no matter what age we are, we are always learning.

For Christmas

Give lovingly

A few weeks ago, I had a visit from a very wise woman.  She didn’t stay long.  She didn’t need to in order to share the gift that was hers to give.  As she was departing, she glanced over her shoulder and spoke a couple of words: Give lovingly, she said.  These words struck a cord and have resonated with me for the past four weeks or so. 

In preparation for the celebration of Christmas, I have witnessed many people already giving very lovingly to others throughout the Advent season.  First, there was the Jesse tree, complete with a number of tags, each one representing a gift that would be offered to someone.  Within days of their arrival, all the tags were gone, and the tree stood denuded of decoration until just recently; all the while, gifts arrived, delivered with great joy, the fruit of generous hearts.  Last weekend, a number of parishioners visited two of the homes for the aged.  There we sang carols and watched as the residents’ faces lit up.  It was as though the words of the prophet Isaiah were coming true right before my eyes: the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, a light has shone.  This light was also evident on the faces of those who received gift baskets so that they could celebrate with their loved ones in these days.

Give lovingly, the woman had said.  Sometimes giving lovingly can hurt.  It calls us beyond our own comfort zones, and forces us to draw from a well which on occasion we are tempted to believe is about to run dry, yet it seems that if our hearts are in the right places, and our intentions are honorable, there is always more to be found in that reservoir, and through the mere act of giving, it seems to be refilled, even to the point of gushing over.  This is the lesson that we learn from the example of our God whose birthday we celebrate today.

The story of that night in Bethlehem has been told and retold throughout history, yet I wonder how often people have paused long enough to truly hear its words.  A census was being taken, so by order of the governor, everyone was on the move.  Joseph and his betrothed too had to travel to Bethlehem (not an easy task for a woman who was about to give birth).  To add insult to injury, there was no room at any of the inns for them to lay their heads, so they were forced to find lodging in one of the stables, which admittedly might very well have been more sanitary than many of the inns themselves.  Surrounded by the sights and sounds of animal life, God’s ultimate act of giving lovingly came into the world.

When my niece was born (three years ago) her parents learned how to wrap her in blankets so that she could keep warm.  I watched them wrap her up, and marveled at the procedure which resulted in her looking like a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon.  I finally understood then what Mary must have done when she wrapped her newborn son in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. This too was an act of giving generously, caring for the newborn who she loved so much but who in turn was and is the author of all love.

As Joseph and Mary gazed in wonder upon their newborn son, and even as they were perhaps uttering a prayer of thanks for the safe delivery, the appearance of the glory of our great God was already being announced by angels to shepherds, the poor outcasts of society.    Here too there is a lesson to be learned: God shares the gift of his divine wisdom with all who would listen, including the poor, the destitute, the marginalized and the needy.  Often it is through their eyes that we are able to most profoundly witness God’s presence among us, and so I leave you with a question: What if this Christmas, we paid particular attention not to the visible trappings that surround us and compete for our attention, but to the little miracles that might so easily be ignored?  Would we then learn a lesson or two about what it truly means to give lovingly?

For the fourth Sunday

A holy heritage

I remember a period of about six years while I was finishing elementary school and working my way through high school, when one of my grandfathers lived with us in Sault Ste. Marie.  At one point, I sat with him in the living room and asked him to tell me about his father and the rest of his family.  You see, he was quite elderly, and I wanted to get the story straight before he wasn’t able to tell it.  Thus began a journey of discovery which led me from the island of Madeira, aboard an onion boat across the Atlantic Ocean to Guyana, but my thirst for knowledge wasn’t satiated yet.  I then asked the same questions of my other grandparents, and discovered that on my father’s side, my ancestors had travelled as indentured slaves from south-western China, most probably around the horn of Africa to the British colony of Guiana.  Knowing the details about this heritage has allowed me to appreciate the heritage that I share with family, and to discover some of the strengths and gifts that I offer, but most importantly, this knowledge allows me to feel grounded, rooted in a tradition that is unique.

The story of our common heritage is told and retold each time we listen to the scriptures.  In a very particular way, its details are recounted in these latter weeks of the Advent period.  My immediate family has traced our roots back at least four generations, but the heritage that is ours through baptism can be traced all the way back to Abraham, who lived around the year 1000 BC.  In fact, Abraham is the common father in faith to Christians and Jews alike, so the family of faith that we belong to is even larger than we might at first believe.

One chapter of our story of faith speaks of a young virgin named Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph of the House of David, and therefore part of the lineage descended from Abraham.  Having heard the message of the angel, and having given her fiat, an act of faith for which we are all grateful, she then set out to visit Elizabeth.  There is a glow that comes upon the face of a woman who is expecting.  I can imagine that this glow must have been radiant as Mary and Elizabeth met outside Zechariah’s house.  The words of greeting that they spoke to one another also portray their joy.  Even now, more than two millennia later, we still repeat the words Elizabeth spoke to Mary that day: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  Mary’s visit might very well have caught Elizabeth unaware.  After all, there were no telephones, and this was well before the age of the internet, however, it would appear from her greeting that Elizabeth too had knowledge of the news that Mary had come to impart: Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?  Even before his birth, John was announcing the presence of God by leaping in his mother’s womb.  We are not told any other details about the visit that these two women had together during the three months or so that they may have been together, but we can infer that there must have been many days and nights of sharing stories about their own encounters with the angels, about their own musings over the precious gifts that had been entrusted to their care.

During this Year of Faith, each of us needs to learn how to tell this story to our children.  We need to be particularly aware of occasions when we can tell this story to the adults too.  I have shared the story of my ancestry in varying levels of detail with children and with adults alike, and each time, there is rapt attention and there are questions as people want to know more and more of the story.  The same is true of our story of faith.  Children and adults alike never seem to tire of the details; each time it is told, there is another part of the story that unfolds.  For instance, today’s first reading reminds us that Bethlehem, the place where the story unfolded was a little town which was by no means well-travelled, but even from this all-but-forgotten little village, great things were about to happen.  O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judea … from you shall come forth one who is to rule in Israel.  If this language were applied to today’s circumstances, it might speak of a person who could make sense out of a tragic shooting which takes place in an elementary school; a person who could explain why such suffering must be endured so close to Christmas, which is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration with families.  Even the later reflections of the Book of Hebrews don’t appear at first to bring much consolation to such situations: In place of the ancient practice of offering sacrifices to God, Jesus came among us to show us that the best way to live is to do the will of God, but how could it be that the will of God is that children and their families should suffer?

Our faith teaches us that when this life here on earth is complete, each of us will be welcomed into the everlasting embrace of our God, and there will be no more suffering, so as we have watched in these past days, and heard reports of the funerals celebrated for the victims in Connecticut, we give thanks that each of those little ones is now in the everlasting embrace of our God, and we pray for their parents and friends who must now continue their earthly journey without them.  May Mary and Elizabeth intercede for them, and hold them in their loving embrace so that they may come to believe that the great history of our faith includes another chapter which is not yet written: the final chapter which will be known when we are all in the loving embrace of our God.

FUNERAL HOMILY FOR RAYMOND MOREL

I can’t be totally sure about the date when my first visit with Raymond took place.  It might have been sometime shortly after my arrival here in this parish, a day when I visited with him in the hospital.  We spoke briefly (or perhaps I should say that I spoke briefly, for he was relying on nasal tubes to help him with breathing at the time).  Perhaps our first meeting took place a number of years ago, on a day when I would have been celebrating a weekday liturgy at the Pro-Cathedral, and he would have been there in the pews, silently suffering even then but all the while a man of prayer.

La semaine dernière, j’ai visité avec Raymond, Lilian et Sylivie à l’hôpital.  Par hazard, l’équippe d’infermières venaient juste d’apporter du café et des petits gateaux.  C’était apropos, je crois, qu’une tel geste d’hospitalité soit offerte.  D’après ce que je peux comprendre il y a toujours des petits coutoisies de cette sorte chez la famille Morel.

And what of this family, the family which gathers in this place, God`s family?  What little acts of kindness do we extend today as we welcome among us those who come to pray with us, to pray Ray into eternity?  When he was brought into the church, we placed upon his casket the pall, the white cloth which is a reminder of the white garment with which he was clothed on the day of his baptism.  We lit the Pascal candle, a reminder of the light of Christ which was entrusted to him on that same day when his parents brought him to the Church and began his journey of faith.  We sprinkled his casket with holy water, a reminder of the water of baptism with which he blessed himself every time he entered the church.  This is the water from the well of life which is spoken of in the second reading we have heard today, for it is the water that washes away sin and makes it possible for us to live the divine life which is promised by our God.

John’s vision of the holy city, and the New Jerusalem has now been revealed in its fullness to Raymond, and the generosity for which he is so well known is now rewarded with a banquet of rich food: the special food which is offered by God to all his beloved.  He who practiced such great hospitality in this life is now the recipient of divine hospitality, of food which satisfies every hunger, and of the fullness of life in the presence of God who has promised to wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Raymond and Lillian both possess the gift of a deep abiding faith, a gift that they in turn have confided to their children, and which they have watched take root in the hearts of their grandchildren and now their great-grandchildren.  In Ray`s case, I’m sure that this faith helped him to endure his many physical trials.  He might not have admitted it aloud, but we who gather here today saw in him a man who was poor in spirit, a man who was gentle and humble, a man who knew deep down that all of life is a gift from God, and when the day is done, we ought to thank God for all the blessings we have received, even the blessing of infirmity.

J’ose dire que ses compagnions membres du Club Richelieu et ses confrères Chevaliers de Colomb l’ont aidé à apprécier et à connaître d’avantage le don du Seigneur qui est réservé à ceux et celles qui répondent aux besoins des affamés.  C’est grâce à ces amis qu’il a pû être si miséricordieux; en toute vérité un procurer la paix.

I`m told that the poem Footprints in the sand held a special meaning for Raymond.  In fact, all those who have known and loved him in this life know and understand that he (that all of us) have moments in our lives when we can particularly relate to this poem.  May its words bring consolation to us who gather today in the presence of our God, our hearts filled with gratitude for all that Ray has been for us.  As long as we in our turn strive to carry our brothers and sisters in their time of need, and to bring them to know the abiding love of our God, the lessons that Ray has taught will live on, and we in our turn can look forward to the day when we will see him again.

Second for Advent

There’s always hope

On Friday morning of this past week, students from Corpus Christi school came to the church to join us for the celebration of the regular morning Mass.  I’m told that they have been here many times before, but this was the first time that they had been here during this school year, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  Children are truly a gift to us adults, you know, if we have the courage to learn from their wisdom.  During the homily on Friday, I explained to the children that God gives special gifts all through the year but especially at Christmas and during the Advent season.  I then proceeded to ask them if they knew what these special gifts were.  I fully expected to hear about toys or about the Halo games the boys want.  Imagine my surprise when not one of the gifts they mentioned was tangible, much less visible.  No, this group of young children quickly named such gifts as hope, joy, peace, togetherness with family and loved ones and even forgiveness.  I suppose you might say that such responses reassured my heart, and made me believe that there is hope for this up-and-coming generation.

Hope is at the heart of the readings we’ve heard this weekend. Anyone who has travelled to the Holy Land will tell you that it’s a pretty harsh and unforgiving terrain.  At first, it appears to be a desert, and indeed it’s not far from it.  Here at home, we are spoiled with such luxuries as grass (at least during the summer months), but in the Holy Land, vegetation is precious, as is rain.  Even though you’re not far from the sea, the landscape is far from verdant. Trees grow there only because they have been so carefully cultivated and cared for.  The majority of the population has been no stranger to suffering at the hands of all those who sought throughout history to control this gateway to the Orient, not least of which were the mighty Romans.

Speaking not to the mighty but to the powerless, the prophet Baruch dared to call his hearers to believe in themselves: to understand that they could hope for a better future.  Arise, O Jerusalem, he says, for every high mountain and the everlasting hills will be made low.  With words which evoke images of the impossible coming to pass, the prophets have challenged their audiences throughout the centuries to believe that the true secret to inner strength can often be found in the things and situations which appear at first to be most fragile.

Primary among these images is the Nativity, something we will have a chance to examine more closely in a few weeks’ time, but the theme of hope coming out of hopeless situations, and strength being found in the midst of weakness can be found even in the image of the Baptist who happens on the scene in today’s gospel.  When I think of John the Baptist, I somehow have a vision of a man standing in the midst of a stream: the River Jordan.  He’s calling out in a voice that sounds half convinced, and half crazed, belligerent and challenging while at the same time daring those who venture close enough to listen to hope that what he says might actually be true.  Yet, the scriptures describe him as a voice crying out in the wilderness (the perfect image of the weak, feeble, perhaps even ignored sprout of which we spoke last week).

If John’s voice could so easily be ignored by the wise and powerful of his day, is it any wonder that we can so easily ignore the wisdom of the voices that speak to us today?  Perhaps if we were truly to listen with the ear of faith, we might hear a child’s voice, so innocent, so easily ignored in an adult world, speaking words of hope for today’s generation, calling us to seek joy and peace and to truly believe that these are possible.  Here then is the challenge for the coming week:  listen for the voices of those who encourage us to hope, even when hope seems furthest from the realm of possibility, and take the time to thank God for the gift of children and others who announce this good news to us.  Pray for them with joy because in their own way, they announce the gospel to our world, and the one who began this good work among them will surely bring it to completion.

Standing up

Have we already lost the war, or is there still a possibility for standing up for what we believe about Christmas, Advent and the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, not to mention the rest of the liturgical feasts which are observed during the octave of Christmas?

One step along the way is finding effective ways to evangelize, and when it comes to teaching these lessons, all methods are possible.



There's a reason why this video has already had more than 18 million views!

First for Advent

Simply waiting

My most recent Visa bill was paid off this week.  Last week, I found myself doing the calculations to see whether there would indeed be enough money in the account so that when the due date arrived, the bill could be paid without having to worry about overdraft charges increasing the debt.  With a little ingenuity, and a bit of planning, the money was indeed there, and then as if by magic, it wasn’t: you see the Visa bill was paid, and the remnants of my account are now left to live another day.  How many of us face this same dilemma each month?  I heard this week that one of the major Canadian banks posted its year-end profits: the largest profits they have ever posted.  I couldn’t help wondering where such wealth has been manufactured.  Then I began to think: banks make their money by lending, either through mortgages or loans, and if the bank has reported record profits, that must mean that there are a record number of mortgages and loans being held by the bank’s customers.

Think about it for a moment:  In the malls, there are more and more throngs of people and it seems to become more and more difficult these days to get into and out of the parking lots, much less to find a parking space.  If that weren’t enough, major sales were announced for Black Friday, and for days now there have been further ‘deals’ announced for online shoppers in relation to Cyber Monday.  For many it seems, the search is on in the coming weeks to find the perfect gift for parents, siblings, loved ones and children.  If we were to allow it, the secular world around us would quickly envelop us.  The Season of Advent would all but disappear, and we would become ensnared in the trappings of materialism that is so often thinly veiled behind words such as Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays … but wait, I’m getting cynical.

What if the world around us preached a different gospel?  Would this be a different place if instead of allowing our hearts to become drowsy and preoccupied by the anxieties of daily life, we were to concentrate our efforts on looking for the Son of Man?  In today’s first reading, the prophet Jeremiah speaks of a just shoot that will spring up, a tender promise of new life which will come out of the rubble and clutter left in the wake of the world around us.  The trouble is that this promise of new life can easily be overlooked and possibly even plucked out of the soil like a weed if we are not watching for it.

And so dear friends, I have a challenge for you.  In the next four weeks, the time the Church devotes to the Season of Advent, concentrate on finding ways to keep this holy season of waiting alive.  Is it possible for us to temper the temptation to fall victim to the consumerist mentality with purposefully concentrating on finding ways to increase and abound in love for one another and for all?

Waiting can indeed have the appearance of being a simple activity, but I assure you that it’s not easy.  The world around us is working very diligently at making us believe that we must seek instant gratifications for our desires, but in the end, immediate answers are far too often shallow and fleeting.  Even if the Visa bill gets paid off this month, there will always be another Visa bill to be paid.

To help us concentrate our efforts on conducting ourselves in a manner pleasing to God, let us aim to abound in love toward all those we meet.  As we prepare to celebrate the birthday of our Savior, let us constantly be on the lookout for opportunities to hope, even in the face of apparent despair.  Let us set our sights on joy wherever and whenever it can be found: in the gathering of family and friends, in the sharing of conversations and laughter and in the simple moments of grace that so often are missed along the way.  Finally, let us be attentive to the call of our God to preach the gospel of peace by our actions and our attitudes, and if necessary through our words.  Love, hope, joy and peace: the gifts of our God during this Advent season are offered to each of us.  Should we not share them so that our world might remember and celebrate them too?