Homily:
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – Cycle B
A few years ago, I was invited to a vocations awareness
dinner where Archbishop Peter Sartain, was scheduled to speak. In his talk during that dinner, he spoke of
his experience of leaving his home diocese of Memphis to become bishop of the
diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas; and then of leaving the diocese of Little
Rock for the diocese of Joliet. He said
that, in both cases, he had to hearken back to the day of his ordination as a
priest. He said that he realized that on
that day (the day of his ordination) he had said “yes” to God and that this
“yes” was open ended. In other words, he
knew that his “yes” was a “yes” for whatever God, through his Church, would
call him to do in the future, even if that would move him away from family and
his beloved flock. Thus, although he
felt deep sadness to leave his home diocese and then his first diocese as a
bishop, he trustingly accepted the call of the Church; for in his heart, he
knew that he had already said “yes” to it all on the day of his ordination to
the priesthood.
In our Scriptures today, we encounter another man whose
“yes” to God was open-ended, and which took him to places and experiences he
never dreamed of. Abraham (who,
initially, was called simply “Abram”) was a man blessed by God and to whom God
revealed himself in visions. God had a
plan for Abraham: a plan that would take him far from his native land, with
only the vague assurance of prosperity when he arrived. Abraham placed his faith in God who had
revealed himself to him and set out from the land of Ur of the Chaldeans for an
unknown land that he was to receive as an inheritance.
This, of course, not only affected him, but his whole
household. His wife, Sarah, and their
entire household (including his livestock) would move with him; and the
hardship that they endured throughout the journey was great. Abraham’s faith was tested—as was his relationship
with his wife—but he persevered and settled in the land that God had promised
him.
Having settled in the land that God had promised to him,
God promised Abraham prosperity and protection.
Abraham, however, questioned God’s promise: asking “What good will your
gifts be if I keep on being childless?”
You see, these ancient peoples had not yet developed the notion of the
immortal soul and so they believed that “eternal life” came from having
children, in which your name—and, thus, your heritage—lived on. Abraham didn’t want material prosperity;
rather, he wanted eternal life. Thus,
God would make another promise: the promise of descendents more numerous than
the stars in the sky. /// It would be many years, however, before God would
fulfill this promise and grant to Abraham and his wife Sarah a son. This was another test of Abraham’s faith: a
test that, once again, affected his whole family.
As difficult as this test might have been, there would
still be one final test for Abraham.
After fulfilling his promise to give Abraham an heir, God then calls
Abraham to offer his son Isaac back to him as a sacrifice. At this point, I imagine that Abraham felt
like he had had enough; and I imagine that he had to pray long and hard about
whether or not he should obey. In the
end, I imagine that he thought back to that first revelation that God had given
to him back in his homeland of Ur of the Chaldeans. I imagine that he looked to that first “yes”
that he had given to God and then realized that, to say “no” now, would be to
negate all of the blessings that he had received by saying “yes” to everything
that had come before. In other words, he
knew that his first “yes” was an open-ended one: a yes not only to God’s first
command to leave his land for a land unknown to him, but also to everything
that would come after; and so he said “yes” to God once again and brought his
son to be offered as a sacrifice to him. /// We, of course, know the rest of
this story: that God stopped Abraham from completing the sacrifice and, as the
Letter to the Hebrews relates, Abraham “received Isaac back” and with it the
promise of a family of innumerable descendants.
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is also a family
whose life was affected by an open-ended “yes” by its members. Mary was confronted by the archangel Gabriel,
who appeared to her and announced God’s incredible plan for her life. She, however, had made a secret consecration
of virginity to God and so could not comprehend how it would be possible for
her to conceive the child that the angel was promising to her. Nevertheless, she trusted in God and said
“yes”: a “yes” to which she would have to return over and over again as more
revelations would be made to her about who her son would be and the
difficulties that he would face (and the difficulties that she would face
through him)—revelations such as the one she received from the Temple prophet,
Simeon.
Joseph, too, would have to say “yes” to an angel—the one
that appeared to him in a dream. When he
found that his supposedly virgin wife had become pregnant before they had
consummated their marriage, he had decided to divorce her, because, as the
Scriptures tell us, he was a righteous man and that was what the Mosaic Law
demanded. He, too, however, trusted in
God and said “yes”: a “yes” to which he, too, would have to return in the
future—such as when he was forced to flee with his family into Egypt to avoid
Herod’s persecution. His and Mary’s “yeses”
to God were open-ended. They could not
foresee all that these “yeses” would demand of them, yet they trusted in God
and gave them anyway; and for this, they have already received their reward.
To this day, faithful families in the land of Abraham,
Sarah, and Isaac—of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—find themselves in similarly
difficult situations. Christians throughout
the Middle East, and especially today in Syria and Iraq, are being severely
persecuted by highly-organized religious extremists and they are being forced
to face their “yes” that they had given to God: the “yes” to put their faith in
God’s complete revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came
to save us from our sin and to win for us eternal life. They are being forced to acknowledge that
their “yeses” were open-ended ones: for they could not foresee that the
endurance of such persecution would be demanded of them.
Believe it or not, we are not far from this experience,
either. Although we in this country are
not subject to the violent persecutions that Christians are facing in the
Middle East, we are, nonetheless, suffering from a persecution no less
hostile. Instead of confronting us with
the threat of death—thus forcing us to renew our “yes” to God or to abandon it
all together—we are being bombarded by a cacophony of confusion, in which our
modern culture seeks to twist truths so that there are no longer absolutes and
then push forward secular values which must be accepted. Refusal results in persecution: not for being
Christian, per se, but rather for being “intolerant” and “bigoted”. It has so many of us confused that we’re not
sure what we’ve said “yes” to, anymore.
This confusion has disrupted our families and has even caused division
within them.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, this feast today is
calling us back to our first “yes”: the “yes” that we proclaimed at our baptism
(or at our confirmation, if we were only infants at our baptism). The “yes” to trust in God through his Son,
Jesus. The “yes” to have faith in his
Church, the Body of Christ, who we are, and who, guided by the Holy Spirit,
cannot err to provide for us clarity in the midst of confusion. Like Abraham and his family, Sarah and Isaac,
and like the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and like Archbishop
Sartain and the persecuted Christians in Syria and Iraq, we must remember that
our “yes” was never to an idea, but to a person—Jesus, our Savior—and to his
promise that, in spite of whatever difficulties we might face, we will not die,
but rather will have eternal life—that is, happiness—forever with him in
heaven. God is calling us today to put
our faith in his promises: the promises that are fulfilled even here in this
Eucharist as we offer Emmanuel, God with us, back to him on this altar. Come, then, let us receive the fulfillment of
these promises, so that, strengthened by them, we may go forth to bring the
light of this truth to a dark world, so desperately in need of it.
And let us pray that the Holy Family may guide our families
through this night and into the light of the fulfillment of God’s promises; and
thus go forward in faith: for our God, who alone has the power to save us, is
trustworthy. He has promised and he will
do it. Amen. Alleluia!
Given at Saint Anne’s Parish:
Monterrey, IN & Saint Ann’s Parish: Kewanna, IN
December 30th, 2017
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN
December 31st, 2017
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