Readings: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 1280; 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24; Luke 2:41-52
Family – Source of Life, Place of Death and, Experience of Resurrection
Why is it important to celebrate the feast of the Holy Family? Today we honor not only, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but we honor the human family as the source and summit of our lives. It is within the family that our humanity is nurtured. “Love is to give, not to take.” Les Miserables* We learn what it means to love through the qualities of affection and compassion expressed in the context of the family. I share this quote from the Dali Lama, who expresses this better than I could…
“The basic human condition or human quality is human affection. That’s the key thing,
right? It is possible to develop or promote, that human quality, because human nature, I
believe is basically compassionate. Negative emotions are also part of the human mind.
However, the dominant force of the human mind is still compassion.”
Conception takes place appropriately when a male and female come together, due, I think, to genuine love. That means they respect each other, are concerned with each other, and share a sense of responsibility. But proper human relationships, according to a kind of natural law, I think include some sense of responsibility. In that way, human life begins. Then during those few months in the mother’s womb, the mother’s state of mind has a strong influence on the development of the child.
Then, especially during the first few weeks after birth, according to scientists, the mother’s physical touch is a most important factor for the healthy development of the baby. I always tell people that a mother is a true teacher of compassion and human affection. Children have something to teach us about responsibility and love beyond ourselves. Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328) the German mystic one wrote, “God gives us children to raise us.” Think about that.
Therefore, I consider compassion as the basic human nature that we all share. Mother ’s milk is, I think, a symbol of compassion. Without mother’s milk we cannot survive, so our first act as a baby together with our mother is sucking milk from our mother, with a feeling of great closeness. At that time, we may not know how to express what love is, what compassion is, but there is a strong feeling of closeness. From the mother’s side also, if there is no strong feeling of closeness toward the baby, her milk may not flow readily. So, mother’s milk is, I think, a symbol of compassion and human affection.”
As you can see, not only is the family the source of our physical life but, the family is the source of our spiritual life as well. We can call the roots of this spiritual life, love, as expressed with affection and compassion. Compassion literally means to “suffer with” and this I believe implies to live fully with another. In good time and in bad, in sickness and in health, until death… The tender expression of a life lived in this way is affection.
When one reaches out to another – to touch, to embrace, to kiss, and more – one is opening ones self up to greater intimacy in the hope of greater sharing of life. This self-transcendence is risking our most venerable aspect. There is always the possibility of rejection by the other, or worse, disinterest. If our love is great, we risk all to express that love. If our love is shared, something new will be birthed – if not we can choose to hope and to love again. However love expressed, it is never a lost cause. As the adage goes, ‘better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ This is our nature and the image of God that is within us. – if we are open to Grace.
This risk of love is to risk oneself in the enterprise of love. This always requires death to one’s own selfish ambitions. To spend one’s life for the good of the other is by definition, love. “There is no greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for another.”
This kind of love, this receiving of life and the acceptance of death, is found in many places – but its natural home in this world is in the family because the family implies that love is a lifelong commitment. Love is not a desire for a passing feeling or a victory march, nor is it even a heroic moment of passing glory. It is nothing less than self-transcendence, transformation, and resurrection. It is becoming our truest self, the way we were created. “God created human beings in God’s own image. Male and female God created them.” c.f. Gen 1:27 “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Les Miserables**
Today let us reflect on the Holy Family as a model for our families and to take a risk to love one another as Jesus loves us. Let us take a risk to show our affection and act with compassion. If the kingdom is to be born in the world then let us conceive of it within our families as it was in the home of Mary and Joseph. If we are to end selfishness in the world, let us end selfishness by dying to ourselves. If the world is to be born anew, may it be through our own rebirth to eternal life. …and what will we be like in that age to come?
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)
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