By Martin Jumbam
The Universal Church celebrates the first Sunday after Christmas 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, but also the feast of each Christian family, our family, and all that it means to us. The readings provided for this day’s Mass, particularly the second reading, describe the atmosphere which should prevail in a Christian family: “You should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience,” says Saint Paul, “and may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts.” In the first reading, from Ecclesiasticus, Ben Sira tells us that we should honour our parents. The Gospel of Matthew highlights the importance of Joseph as the head of the family of Nazareth with responsibility to protect the infant Child Jesus and his mother, Mary. Let us pray for the grace of peace and harmony in our respective families.
First Reading: Ecclesiasticus 3:2-5. 12-14.
The Lord honours the father in his children, and upholds the rights of a mother over her sons. Whoever respects his father is atoning for his sins, he who honours his mother is like someone amassing a fortune. Whoever respects his father will be happy with children of his own, he shall be heard on the day when he prays. Long life comes to him who honours his father, he who sets his mother at ease is showing obedience to the Lord. My son, support your father in his old age, do not grieve him during his life. Even if his mind should fail, show him sympathy, do not despise him in your health and strength; for kindness to a father shall not be forgotten but will serve as reparation for your sins.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
History tells us that the Book of Sirach, commonly known in Latin as Ecclesiasticus was originally written in Hebrew on the eve of the Maccabean revolt of 180 BC. The African Bible tells me that the author was an experienced Jewish scribe and teacher who established a rabbinic school in Jerusalem after retiring from his public career as a diplomat. He wrote to call attention to the challenges and dangers the Jewish culture was facing from the materialistic Greek culture that was gradually invading Palestine. The general tone of his work is a call on Jews to respect the traditional Jewish moral values and to acquire a deep knowledge and love of the scriptures as well as practical wisdom.
In today’s passage, he insists on filial duty towards one’s parents as a basic example of one’s religious duty. The traditional reward for anyone who honours father and mother is a long and prosperous life. Ben Sira is probably offering a commentary on the fourth commandment: “Honour your father and mother that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (Exodus 20:12).
What message does this passage have for us? The call for us to honour our parents is not strange to us in Africa. For us, parentage goes beyond our own nuclear families to include grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc, to whom we are all called to give honour and respect. What Ben Sira denounced as the invasion of his Jewish culture by Greek culture is also happening in Africa today. Western culture is invading our African cultures and we are ignoring the wisdom our ancestors passed onto us. Modern Africa is no longer listening to the wisdom of her ancestors, especially as the young are flocking into our cities in search of a share in the glamour of modern life. The consequences are there for all to see: prostitution, all kinds of sexually transmissible diseases, including the dreaded HIV/AIDS, overcrowding and the growth of slums with their accompanying criminality of all sorts.
Let us therefore pray to God to help us to preserve many of our traditional values, notably the respect for our parents, the respect for elders, for the sick, the orphans and the widows in our society. Let us pray: “God our Father, remember all the families of our land, help the members to love each other unselfishly, as Christ loves his Church, so that they may live together in joy, peace and harmony, giving heartfelt thanks to you through your Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. We make our supplication through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Second Reading: Colossians 3:12-21.
You are God’s chosen race, his saints; he loves you and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive each other as soon as a quarrel begins. The Lord has forgiven you; now you do the same. Over all these clothes, to keep them together and complete them, put on love. And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts, because it is for this that you were called together as parts of one body. Always be thankful. Let the message of Christ, in all its richness, find a home with you. Teach each other, and advise each other, in all wisdom. With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God; and never say or do anything except in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, give way to your husbands, as you should in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and treat them with gentleness. Children, be obedient to your parents always, because that is what will please the Lord. Parents, never drive your children to resentment or you will make them feel frustrated.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Paul is thought to have written his letter to the Colossians from prison. The purpose of this letter was to strengthen the faith of his Colossian community and to correct some errors gaining a foothold there. Some of there errors were beliefs brought into Christianity from Judaism and from a number of pagan religions and cults.
In today’s passage, Paul insists on Christ as the perfect model for us all. He insists that Christ shows us a love, which enfolds and binds together all other attitudes. A life dedicated by this love extends the peace of Christ into the whole community. It promotes mutual understanding and genuine Christian wisdom. In the members of his community, Christ continues his life of praise and thanksgiving through the Father.
What lesson am I taking home from this reading? Paul wants the Christian home to be a special example of what the Fathers of Vatican II Council call “a domestic church” where peace, respect and harmony reign. That is why he devotes a section of his letter to exhortations on family morality, listing advice to the different members of the family, including the slaves of the household. Love and harmony, he says, characterize a Christian home. As the Holy Father, Blessed Pope John Paul II says in his Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa: “The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family. Not only is the Christian family the first cell of the living ecclesial community, it is also the fundamental cell of society In Africa in particular, the family is the foundation on which the social edifice is built.” (No 80).
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: Matthew 2:13-15. 19-23.
After the wise men had left, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him.’ So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘I called my son out of Egypt.’ After Herod’s death, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother with you and go back to the land of Israel, for those who wanted to kill the child are dead.’ So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, went back to the land of Israel. But when he learnt that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod as ruler of Judaea he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he left for the region of Galilee. There he settled in a town called Nazareth. In this way the words spoken through the prophets were to be fulfilled: ‘He will be called a Nazarene.’
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
Today’s Gospel focuses our attention on the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, which, as Matthew tells us, lived for a while in Africa. Blessed Pope John Paul II calls the Family of Nazareth 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, as Ben Sira told us in the first reading, 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. When danger is announced, 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, who should be at the center of the love that members of the family 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. For their part, 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 in the first reading 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 what 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. As the saying goes, the family that prays together, stays 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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