By Martin Jumbam
Today, December 30, 2012, is the first Sunday after Christmas and the Universal Church celebrates it as the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. In the entrance antiphon we pray: “The shepherds hastened to Bethlehem, where they found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. Amen.”
We are celebrating not only the feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the family of Jesus. Mary and Joseph, but also the feast of each Christian family, our family, and all that it means to us. The readings of this day’s Mass from the Old Testament as well as from the New Testament all focus on the family. In the first reading, from First Samuel, the birth of Samuel is shown as a miraculous event, emphasizing divine intervention and the child’s importance. A childless woman, humiliated by her husband’s other fertile wife, seeks a way out of her anguish by asking God, her only hope, to give her a son, which he does. In the Second Reading from First John, we see the Apostle contemplating the marvelous gift of being God’s children. We have been created to obtain the dignity of children of God, through the grace that raises us up to a supernatural level. In the Gospel, Saint Luke, the only evangelist who reports the event of the Child Jesus being lost and then found in the temple, also reports how Jesus grew up in physical stature and in wisdom, obeying his parents as all good children should. .
In the course of this Eucharist, let us pray for our families which, in many parts of our country today are showing signs of weakening as harmony and unity are sometimes absent from our homes. Many of our homes no longer give room for God who alone can strengthen the love members of the family have for one another.
First Reading: Samuel 1:20-22. 24-28
Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, and called him Samuel ‘since’ she said ‘I asked the Lord for him.’ When a year had gone by, the husband Elkanah went up again with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow. Hannah, however, did not go up, having said to her husband, ‘Not before the child is weaned. Then I will bring him and present him before the Lord and he shall stay there for ever.’ When she had weaned him, she took him up with her together with a three-year old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the temple of the Lord at Shiloh; and the child was with them. They slaughtered the bull and the child’s mother came to Eli. She said, ‘If you please, my lord. As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying to the Lord. This is the child I prayed for, and the Lord granted me what I asked him. Now I make him over to the Lord for the whole of his life. He is made over to the Lord. There she left him, for the Lord.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
History tells us that the two Books of Samuel, First and Second Samuel, present the hereditary monarchy from David onwards as a system of government that God desired for his people. David is portrayed as a model king, who, despite his personal limitations and his transgressions, always enjoyed God’s favours because whenever he fell short of God’s expectations he always repented. The history contained in the books of Samuel covers a very important period in the life of Israel extending from the birth of Samuel, the last of the judges, to the end of David’s life – a period in which the twelve tribes changed from a system having sporadic leadership to an organized state with a single, hereditary monarchy, which was the standard pattern among the neighboring peoples.
The books of Samuel begin with an account of the birth of the man from whom they take their name, that is, Samuel, who will become a judge of Israel and a prophet. His birth, which is at the center of the reading of this day, is described with all the elements denoting a miraculous event, with emphasis on the divine intervention. With no hope of a human solution, a childless woman, humiliated by her husband’s other wife, seeks a way out of her anguish by asking God, her only hope, to give her a son.
Her husband love her but does not understand her (v. 8), and Eli, the priest and head of the shrine at Shiloh, comes to bless her but even he does not understand her either. God is the only one who listens to her, and accepts the vow she has made to him, that is, to dedicate her son entirely to God. God takes away the stigma of barrenness from her and restores her dignity as a woman.
Hannah is an example of a devout and God-fearing woman who perseveres in prayer, convinced that God will heed her plea. As Saint Cyprian says, Hannah, who will bear Samuel in her womb, is a figure of Mary and also “a symbol of the Church which carries the Lord. Her prayer is not clamorous, rather it is calm and refined; she prays in the depths of her heart because she knows that God listens to her there.”
Samuel comes into the world as a gift from God; he is the one who was “asked for of the Lord.” His mission on earth will be as exceptional as his birth. His mother presents him at the temple and he is brought up by the priests of Shiloh, that is, within the ancient institutions of the time of the judges.
What lesson do we learn from this passage? First of all, we learn of the power of prayer. A woman perseveres in prayer and God exhorts her wish. God will also hear our prayer when we come to him with our problems, especially the problems of infertility that cause so much anguish in our homes. God’s preference for the weak, the hungry, the barren and the needy over those with much property cannot be better expressed than in the case of Hannah. So let us pray to God to bless our families. Where there is discord, may he bring understanding and love. Amen.
Second reading: First Letter of Saint John 3: 1-2. 21-25
Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us. My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed, all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is. My dear people, if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience, we need not be afraid in God’s presence, and whatever we ask him, we shall receive, because we keep his commandments and live the kind of life that he wants. His commandments are these: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another as he told us to. Whoever keeps his commandments lives in God and God lives in him. We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
According to tradition passed down by Saint Irenaeus, the Apostle Saint John, on his return from exile on the island of Patmos, spent the last years of his life in Ephesus, at that time the capital of the Roman province of Asia. That is where he is thought to have written the three letters attributed to him around the years 95-96 AD. From there Saint John ruled over the church of Asia Minor, whose names are given in the Book of Revelation (Rev 2-3).
From the content of Saint John’s first letter, from where our reading is taken, it is obvious that some false teachers, whom John refers to as antichrist, deceivers, and children of the devil, had appeared in the young church and were spreading both doctrinal and moral errors to do with the salvific work of Christ. John considered them a real threat to the purity of faith and Christian morality. He therefore wrote this letter to denounce their errors and strengthen the faith of believers.
The passage of our meditation shows how moved Saint John was when he was contemplating the marvelous gift of divine filiation. The Holy Spirit, who is the author of all Sacred Scripture, desired that John should pass on to us this wonderful message, which is that we are all children of God. For this, we should reject sin in any shape or form, and live brotherly love to the full.
The main message in this passage, as in all our readings this day, is one of love of God and love of neighbor. Our model is Christ Jesus, who gave his life for us. Christ therefore shows us that brotherly love involves total confidence in God, who know everything (vv 19-22). God’s commandments are summed up in terms of love for Jesus and love for one another. As Saint Bede tells us, “We cannot rightly love one another unless we believe in Christ; nor can we truly believe in the name of Jesus Christ without brotherly love.”
Here is a beautiful prayer from the Pope’s Family Prayer Book: “Father, you called us to found this family together. Give us the grace to animate it with your love; May our family always comfort those who live in it and welcome those who enter it, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Gospel acclamation: ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Open our heart, O Lord, to accept the words of your Son. Alleluia.’
Gospel: Luke 2: 41-52.
Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual. When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it. They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances. Whey the failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere. Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.’ ‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied. ‘Did you knot know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ But they did not understand what he meant. He went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority. His mother stored up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men.
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ.
Comment
Saint Luke is the only evangelist who reports the event of the Child Jesus being lost and then found in the temple, as we hear in the Gospel of this day. Only males of twelve years of age and above were required to make the pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. Jewish tradition required that men and women going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem go in two groups: one of men, and the other of women. Children could go with either group and this explains how Mary and Joseph could go a whole day’s journey before noticing, when the families regrouped to camp, that Jesus was not with them.
Saint Luke’s picture of Jesus is that of a young exemplary boy doing the normal duties of a Jewish family. He is docile and obedient to his family and, as the evangelist tells us, he grew in wisdom and in favour with God and man (Lk 2: 52). Saint Luke celebrates the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Holy Family of Nazareth, which Blessed Pope John Paul II calls the “prototype and example for all Christian families,” and the “model and spiritual source of every Christian family.”
A feast that touches the family touches us all as it touches the basics of our daily life. The family is honoured throughout Sacred Scripture. As we hear in Genesis (2:18-19) when God saw that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, he created woman and together they formed the first human family. Genesis 2:24 again emphasises the importance of the family when it tells us man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one body. In stressing the importance of the family, the Bible also calls on the children to honour their parents.
So the feast of the Holy Family is an invitation to each member of our family to play the role assign to him or her. Husbands and fathers should be faithful, understanding, caring and loving heads of their families, just as Joseph is. Joseph immediately takes measures to protect his family by taking them away to Egypt. It was from Joseph that Jesus learnt the trade of carpentry, in other words, the means to make an honourable living.
This day is also an invitation to wives and mothers to be as faithful, caring, truthful, holy and respectful as Mary was. It also invites the children to love, respect and be truthful to their parents as Jesus was to his own parents.
A Christian home must be an imitation of the house of Nazareth: a place where there is plenty of room for God so that he can be right at the center of the love that members of the family should have for one another.
But what do families look like, particularly in the city of Douala today? The increase in the number of children without a home, the so-called street kids, points to a family crisis of which our children are victims. The kids revolt against parental authority, flee the home and the result is an increase in juvenile delinquency. Why are our children not like Jesus to their parents? Do we find the time to pray with them? Do we bring them with us to Church? Do they even see us going to Church for them to imitate us?
Husbands generally stay out late at night, coming back home, if they do at all, only in the early hours of the morning, and then they are gone again. The phenomenon of keeping mistresses outside the home, the so-called “deuxième bureau”, is causing havoc to our families these days. Divorce is rampant, as a consequence.
Women, especially those working outside the home, generally don’t have enough time to consecrate to their children, especially when they come back home late and tired. The picture of the family, especially in the city of Douala, shows that there is much healing to be done. There is a need for the restoration of holy and healthy relationships between the various members of the family. We all have to cultivate those virtues Christ singled out: selfless love, forgiveness and thankfulness. Children are asked to take care of their parents when they are old, even if their minds fail them. Children owe their parents honour, obedience, respect and gratitude for that they are doing for them. Parents pay their fees, sometimes under very difficult conditions, and provide their other daily needs. For this, children should be thankful to them. In turn, parents should teach their children to love God. Families should learn to make time to pray together.
Let us pray this prayer from an Anglican Prayer Book: “O God our Father, bind together in your all-embracing love, every family on earth. Banish anger and bitterness within them; nourish forgiveness and peace. Bestow upon parents such wisdom and patience that they may gently exercise the disciplines of love, and call forth from their children their greatest virtue and their highest skill. Instill in children such independence and self-respect that they may freely obey their parents, and grow in the joy of companionship. Open ears to hear the truth within the words another speaks; open eyes to see the reality beneath another’s appearance; and make the mutual affection of families a sign of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
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