Feast of the Holy Family

At the heart of Christianity is the call to love the way God loves, a challenge which goes on all our lives. No matter how adorable babies and young children may be, the truth is that, as you may have noticed amidst all the giving and receiving of presents on Christmas day, we begin life as deeply selfish little monsters. We tolerate this, of course, in the very young and even find it attractive and amusing at times. But even at the human level, and leaving Jesus and any spiritual dimension to one side for a moment, we know that, if the child is not to grow into the real thing, a fully grown adult monster, he or she cannot be allowed to stay like that. And so, before too long, we all have to start learning the painful message that we are not the centre of the universe and that the rights and feelings of other people have to be respected too. And when this lesson is not learned, the consequences can be quite horrific. You can see it already in some children who, by the time they start school, are already showing signs of monsterhood. And the fundamental reason why half the people in Kilmarnock prison are in there is that, as children, they were never really taught this lesson and so go through their lives basically not understanding why they cannot just do what they want. And what I invite you to reflect on today is how it’s within the family, amidst the cut and thrust of daily life, that we learn this lesson, not only as children, but all through our lives.

And it’s a delicate, sometimes risky, business. Children, as we know, do not come with an instruction manual, and so parents have to learn as they go along, a lot depending on what their experience was at the hands of their own parents. And, again, that’s why so many of those in our prisons, although obviously not all, are the offspring of parents and grandparents who themselves have fallen foul of the law. But in general terms, its a case working out at this stage how to teach discipline and respect for others in a way that does not crush the child but enables it to grow and gradually become the person he/she is.

At this stage however, the concept of generosity has not developed in us, the first step towards what will, hopefully, become generosity being a sense of fairness. Which is why, of course, our great cry at this point in our lives is, ‘But it’s not fair.’ We should not, of course, underestimate this stage in our development. If the world were fairer, it would be much better for it. But beyond fairness lies something else and one of the ways we learn this is through adolescence, a crucial time for both parents and young people.

I speak here, of course, as one without children, but one of the conclusions I have come to, watching the process from a bit of a distance, is that there’s no form of love closer to the love of God than the love many parents show to difficult adolescent children. If fairness were the criterion, then the son/daughter struggling through this journey from childhood to adulthood would not have a leg to stand on. But in many parents, this struggle draws out of them a generosity which makes no sense in terms of mere fairness. And the experience of receiving such love, even although it is not necessarily acknowledged or appreciated at the time, is, I would suggest, one of the main things which draws the young person, too, towards maturity and a new way of relating to others.

But then, of course, comes the next stage, when we begin to enter into relationships with people of the opposite sex. Here, too, despite all our early protestations of love, there is an enormous amount of self and selfishness involved. To reach the point where sexuality is about the other person rather than ourselves is a long journey which many never complete and which, even for those who do, takes many years. And as one stage in our lives gives way to another, children again play a huge part. One of the saddest things about the Sharon Matthews case recently was the fact that, in court, an expert witness said that her mother was psychologically incapable of putting her child’s needs before her own, one of the single biggest challenges of parenthood and one which plays a huge part in our development. And again, I speak as one less wise. But through the challenges of marriage and children, slowly but surely – if the process works that is – we move towards great and greater maturity, which is the same thing as to say we learn the meaning of the word love.

The stage of our lives which remains, of course, is the last stage, ageing and growing old, during which the great challenge for us is to learn to receive. The popular writer, Henri Nouwen - of whom it has been said that he never had an unpublished thought - has written about this stage in our lives, saying that its overall purpose is to teach us to let other people do things for us. Because, if we have not learned this – and how many older people have you see stubbornly resisting it - we are not ready for the God who longs to do more for us than we could ever imagine. But ageing presents another challenge too. And its to those not yet old. In a society ruled by market-forces, the danger is that those who have ceased to be productive cease to have value. And so the ultimate test of family life is how we care for the elderly, a test our society today is struggling to come to terms with.

But, having said all that, and having faced all the difficult challenges of what it means to love within the family, even this is still not the love the Gospel speaks of. It is part of our growth towards that love, but it is not it. If we only love those who love us, Jesus tells us, then we are no different from the pagans. Our love, he goes on, must be perfect. It must be like God’s love and reach out beyond the limits of blood and family. It must go out to those on the margins. It must include those whom the world considers unloveable. Family life, hugely important as it is and vital to our development, is no more than training for a far greater love. Because, in the end, there’s only one family: the human family.

So, on a scale of one to ten, where would you place yourself on this great journey?


BIDDING PRAYERS


We begin our prayer today by asking God to stir in us a deep sense of gratitude to our parents and brothers and sisters for all we learned through and from them in our early years. Recognizing, in particular, the many ways in which they challenged those aspects of our personalities which, had they been left unchecked, would have had a long-term harmful effect on the way we have grown and developed as people, we ask God to bless them now wherever they are...................Lord hear us

When the gospel calls on us to love one another the way God loves, it is, of course, calling us far beyond the limits of family relationships. But to do so, to reach out to the world with a love that is willing to embrace the unlovable and those on the margins of society, is not something that we can do by ourselves. It is only possible through the power of the Spirit living in us and doing, through grace, what, left to ourselves, we could never do. And so we pray for this grace.....................Lord hear us

Even within our families and among people who, deep down, still love one another, there are often deep, unresolved tensions. Sometimes, as we know only too well from sad experience, families can be split apart, sometimes by incidents or disputes which, in the beginning, seemed, on the face of it, quite insignificant. And so we pray for families we may know where this has happened, that, with God’s help, the resulting wounds will be healed before it is too late.....................Lord hear us

We pray, too, in a very special way on this Feast, for parents and young people in the midst of coping with the period in life we call adolescence. Like birth itself, it can be a very difficult and painful time, as the child begins to develop and change so that the adult man or woman can be born. Only through the love of parents who are willing to keep loving their children when they are not always loveable is this possible, and we ask God to give parents today this grace in abundance..................Lord hear us

For a whole variety of reasons, many families today live in a state of chaos where the guidelines children need to develop in a healthy and balanced way simply do not exist. And so whole generations are growing up in a moral landscape devoid of signposts, where, at an age when they are not ready to do so, young people are having to make adult moral choices and work out for themselves what is right or wrong. And so we ask God to guide and protect them....................Lord hear us

The developed world, today, is struggling with the issue of the elderly and infirm. In more traditional societies, the elderly are valued for their wisdom and experience. In a society driven by market-forces, however, the danger is that, since they no longer produce anything, the elderly come to be seen as a burden to the tax-payer. Some even talk of a future war between old and young over the issue of pensions. And so we ask God to teach us sense in this area while there is still time..............Lord hear us