Gospel Reflection Sunday December 31st 2023 – Feast of the Holy Family

By Fr Brian Maher OMI

Gospel Reflection for Sunday December 31st 2023 | Feast of the Holy Family

Parents reading this will easily remember the many milestones your children encountered as they grew. You will remember their first words, first tooth, first steps, first day at school, and so many other firsts of childhood. It was you who taught your children to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and be nice to others. It was you who first told them of God, taught them their first prayers, and brought them to Church. It was you who kissed their childhood cuts and bruises better and were there when they were ill. But most important, it was within your family that your children first experienced love and learned the importance of showing love to others.

Jesus also encountered all of these ‘firsts’ in his own family, a family watched over by Mary and Joseph. I wonder were Jesus’ first words ‘Imma’ meaning ‘Mum’ or ‘Abba’ meaning ‘Dad’. Like most children these probably were his first words – at least I like to think so.

And what about those troublesome teenage years? Can I hear Mary saying to Joseph (or vice versa) “Leave him be. It’s only a phase he’s going through!”?

We can so easily imagine Jesus being the ‘ideal’ child who never cried, never said an angry word and was never just simply naughty. Somehow thinking of Jesus as ‘God’ clouds our ability to see him as fully and completely human. I don’t have a problem saying that Jesus “was without sin”, but the normal ‘naughtiness’ of growing up is more about learning boundaries than sin and I imagine Jesus, with his peers and friends, being involved in the usual mischief of being a child.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family and it is important that, coming so soon after the festivities of Christmas and preparing to welcome the New Year, we don’t switch-off for a while and overlook it. Let us not forget that over 99% of his short life was spent in and around his family and his home village of Nazareth.

Sadly, the Gospels tell us little or nothing about his first thirty years of life, and we are left with only clues as to the life he must have lived there. Even the make-up of the Holy Family is a vexed one. The Gospels seem to suggest that Jesus was first-born of Mary and Joseph, and of course the ‘only-begotten Son of God’, but that he did have brothers and sisters. However, this is not universally accepted, which is why the traditional images of the Holy Family tend to be images of Joseph, Mary and Jesus as an only child.

In truth it doesn’t really matter whether Jesus grew up with brothers and sisters or alone with Mary and Joseph. What is certain is that he grew up in a close and loving family setting.

It is also certain that he grew up in a traditional and devout Jewish family. Today’s Gospel, for instance, is very clear that all religious ceremonies associated with his birth were carried out according to the ‘Law of Moses’.

Jesus was circumcised after eight days. Forty days after his birth Mary went to the Temple in Jerusalem for her ceremony of ‘purification’ (a mother was considered to be ‘unclean’ for forty days after giving birth). At the same time Jesus, as their first-born son, was ‘presented to the Lord’ in the Temple. The later incident of Jesus being lost in Jerusalem for three days when he was twelve, happened when the family had come to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover, further evidence that Jesus learned of God’s plan for his Chosen People from a very young age.

Was the Holy Family a ‘poor’ one materially? Firstly, we need to be careful when we use the term ‘poor’ to refer to any period in history. Certainly, by our modern Western standards Jesus’ family was a poor one. However, in the context of their own time the family of Jesus would have ranked in a more ‘middle’ category of wealth.

Joseph was a carpenter, though the Greek word used to describe his profession is better translated as ‘craftsman’. Joseph probably worked with stone as a mason/builder as much as with wood.

Nazareth, where they lived, was a small agricultural village at the time of Jesus, so while the need for a carpenter or stone mason was a constant one, the size of the village would have reduced demand for their services.

The Gospel today gives us a hint as to their wealth as a family. We are told that Mary and Joseph offered “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons” to the Temple as their sacrificial offering. This would have been considered the offering of a ‘poor’ person. The wealthy might offer bulls, rams, sheep, etc.

It would probably be true to say that Jesus grew up in what was considered an average, unspectacular family; respected members of the village community without being considered wealthy or powerful.

The best clues we have to substantiate this come from the Gospel of Mark, and also that of Luke.

Jesus returned to Nazareth, his home village, once (at least) and suffered rejection there by the village community. The reason for his rejection by his own people is a very human one and probably one all of us have experienced at some time in our lives.

Firstly, we learn that he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath “as was his custom”. Here, once again, is evidence of his upbringing as a devout practising Jew. More than that, he was invited by the Rabbi to read a text from Scripture and comment on it. While Jesus never trained as a Rabbi, it is obvious that what he had to say was valued by many in the community.

However, as he preached or commented on the Isaiah passage he read, anger grew among some of his hearers. The real reason for their anger is probably complex but it is the reasons they gave for rejecting him which give us a clue about the family he came from.  ^“Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?”

It is clear from this that as far as the village was concerned Jesus was simply ‘the carpenter’ and ‘Mary’s son’. There was nothing special or unusual about him, nothing that would explain the miracles they hear he had been doing or the teachings they hear he had been preaching.

Their rejection is a very human jealousy. Jesus is one of them. They knew him growing up. He is an ordinary carpenter, from an ordinary family. There is nothing special about him or his family.  So, who does he think he is to be putting on airs and graces – doing miracles and becoming a celebrity preacher?

Isn’t this something we all do at times? Isn’t this something we have all suffered at times? The people who judge us most harshly and are most critical of us are very often those who know us best, and those from whom we might expect more. Isn’t it good to know that Jesus suffered the same rejection and, therefore, that he can understand how we feel in similar situations?

If we are going to get to know the person of Jesus, the man to walked those trails of Galilee and Judea and the man who called us ‘friends’ and died and rose from the dead for us; then we must start by coming to know Jesus, the child, adolescent and young man.

Like all of us he was born into a family. Within that family he grew and matured. Within that family he first experienced love and learned the importance of sharing it.

Jesus could not have grown into the man he became, and he could never have said and done the things he said and did, if he had not first learned them from his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph.

It is within the human love of the Holy Family, just as it is within the divine love of the Trinity that God’s wonderful plan for all of us is worked out.

We would do well today, to thank the God who became one of us and the thank our own families – most of them also ‘holy families’ – who loved and nurtured us just as Joseph and Mary loved and nurtured Jesus.

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie

My eyes have seen your salvation