PUT ON LOVE!

 

            We read in today's Alleluia verse these words addressed especially to families: "May the peace of Christ rule in your hearts: and the fullness of His message live within you."  (+)

    Today is the wonderful feast of the Holy Family.     It is quite appropriate that the Church celebrates this feast on the very first Sunday after Christmas.  Christmas is in fact all about families.  God loves the family.  The Church loves the family and,  properly so, the Church is at the service of the family.  The priesthood is at the service of the family.  One might ask: "Since priests are celibates, what do they know about families and problems that families face?  There was a great French theologian who lived about the turn of the century.  His name was Lacordiare and he wrote these magnificent words about the life of a priest:

 

"To live in the midst of the world, 
Without wishing its pleasures;
To be a member of each family,

Yet belonging to none;  To share all their sufferings; 

To heal all their wounds;   To penetrate all their secrets;

 To go from them to God And offer Him their prayers;

To bring pardon and hope---To console and bless them;   To return from God to men;

What a life!  What a life!  And it is yours, O Priest of Jesus Christ!"

          This is the life of the Catholic Priest.  Our lives are no longer our own.  We are of Christ and the spreading of His holy Gospel.  To do this, we must be filled with the love of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary & Joseph.
 

          Turn to the Holy Family gathered around the crib and we try to find their peace.  What were they like?  How can we have a glimpse of their peace.   Today we live in such a wounded society and there is no more wounded unite than the family.  As a priest I hear many terrifying stories about wounded families.           

         And O!  How Joseph loved the boy!  Recall the story of the three day loss.  When the Holy Couple found the Boy, Our Lady said to Him:  "Your father asnd I have been searching for you."  No one knew better than Mary that Joseph was not the Boy's paternal father.  Ydet!  She refered to him as, "your father!"  It was a sign of great respect and love.
 
        You fathers, heed the words of St. Paul:  "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves his Church."  Love is not machoism.  Love is gentleness and kindness.



          Joseph!  What was he like?  St. Joseph was the just man who always followed the will and the wisdom of God.  Three times St. Matthew tells us that the Angel woke Joseph in his sleep.  Once to take mary as his wife, once to flee into Egypt and a third time to return and take the Child to the land of Israel.  Each time St. Matthew was careful to note that Joseph, Immediate Joseph got up and did as the angel had commanded.

 

             Mary!  What was she like?   Her greatest moment was at the Annunciation.  She responded to God's call by saying to the angel:  "Be it done unto me according to thy word!"  God's will!  That  and that alone is what she would do for that is what she always had done!    She lived her life in conformity with the will and the wisdom of God.  She surrendered her will back to God.  Our Lady did not live her life HER way---she lived it God's way. 

 

            You mothers, imitate our Lady.  Obey your husbands in all that is of the Lord.  Your lives are your husbands and your children centered around Jesus.  Do not listen to these wacky feminists. They make no sense.    Take a look at them.  They usually are a freight because they refuse to be women.  Not being able to be men,  they are nowhere.  They have not the love of the family and so them became hags, shrews and so they seek to destroy the family.

 

Jesus!  What was he like?  St. Paul describes Him well in his letter to the Philippians.   He himself said, I have not come to do my own will but the will of my Father.

 

            You young people imitate Jesus and not the pagan world.  Obey your parents!  Remember Jesus went home with them and was subject to them.

 

         How do we find the strength to accomplish all of these things?   We find therm through the saving mystery of the Catholic Church  - - -  through the Mass Sacraments, Confession and Communion.    Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we put our trust in you!