My dear parishioners, the child Jesus is very near to us. In this Christmas season, we celebrate the inexpressible miracle of the Christ of God who, at a word of command, became a human being like us in all things but sin. My heart is filled with joy and wonder to realize how God created us in his own image and likeness [cf Gen 1:26] and desires that we “put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness”. [Eph 4:24]
Mary responded to God’s message by saying to the Archangel Gabriel, “Be it done to me according to your word!” Joseph, of the house of David, did as the angel commanded him in a dream. He laid down his fear and took up Mary into his home. Accepting the will of God, the humble Joseph and Mary established an ordinary home in Nazareth—filled with laughter, hospitality, good food and the warmth of a family’s love. They relied totally on God to manifest himself, reveal something of his great purpose, and to show them what they must do.
Many of the challenges of human life, whether pleasurable or disturbing, are unpredictable. They sometimes collide as well, threatening to overwhelm ordinary people who otherwise are strong and resilient. The grave danger is, of course, the force of drift. How easy it is to compromise truth, integrity, decency and the gift of human life in a multitude of little ways, thinking all the while that the vital axis of one’s life hasn’t shifted. Until that day when the drift becomes a tide, and the tide becomes a roaring ocean, and all is swept away as in the days of Noah.
You may remember how a favorite book fell apart, how the binding split and pages were torn and lost. A broken book can be archived or replaced easily enough. Not so for a broken human being who must struggle to heal and regenerate in the very act of living out his or her own daily life—as if facing the challenges of everyday life weren’t already significant. Perhaps human brokenness can be alleviated occasionally by one’s native self-confidence or community support, but over the long run this will not be enough. In the end, human beings must face reality and the consequences of fundamentally rejecting God who created them. Only by returning to the Lord with all one’s heart does human longing for genuine and lasting healing become attainable.
Clearly the search for healing and wholeness begins with a journey of faith. We search for a person outside and above ourselves, a person to whom we can entrust our creatureliness, our frailty, our mortality, indeed the very fact of our unique and irreplaceable personhood. [cf Pope Saint John Paul II, Fides et Ratio 33] That person, of course, is the Christ Child—the Son of Man who is the Son of God. Jesus Christ “bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed”. [1Pet 2:24]
What makes the Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and the Christ Child memorable is not luck, skill, privilege, superiority or anything of the sort. Rather, it is their willingness to entrust to God’s authorship the writing of their own simple stories into the great narrative of human redemption. Mary’s and Joseph’s model of family discipleship has, at its heart, a total gift of self and family to God. From the Holy Family emerges many lessons, but perhaps the greatest lesson is this: God invites you to live an ordinary life in an extraordinary way. The Holy Family points to a deeply meaningful spirituality found in simple things like work, play, studies, home-making, sports, and joyful celebrations of faith. These you are to dedicate to God and offer for his blessing each day.
If all human beings were as courageous! If all human beings truly understood how, in a moment in time, God accepted the faith of Joseph and Mary in a village called Bethlehem to reveal the truth of his love! The Holy Family is honored above all others, for Mary and Joseph merited living “happily ever after” as the gift of salvation that comes through faith. [cf 2Tim 3:15] Sincerely, in the love of the Holy Family. Your pastor, Reverend Richard Barker.
My dear parishioners, the child Jesus is very near to us. In this Christmas season, we celebrate the inexpressible miracle of the Christ of God who, at a word of command, became a human being like us in all things but sin. My heart is filled with joy and wonder to realize how God created us in his own image and likeness [cf Gen 1:26] and desires that we “put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness”. [Eph 4:24]