The Holy Family

(Solemnity of the Holy Family—Year B; This homily was given on December 27, 2020 at St. Paul’s Church in Cranston, R.I.; See Colossians 3:12-21 and Luke 2:22-40)

The Solemnity of the Holy Family offers us a great opportunity to reflect upon the Church’s beautiful teachings regarding marriage and family. In his “Theology of the Body,” St. John Paul II refers to marriage as the “primordial sacrament.”  What does that mean?  

Basically, all the Sacraments are instituted by Christ to bring us back into relationship with God and each other.  In the Sacrament of Baptism, we are cleansed of original sin and receive the gift of sanctifying grace; in the Sacrmant of Reconciliation that gift is restored if we have lost it though mortal sin; in the Eucharist we are given a sharing in the very body and blood of Christ and possess the promise of life eternal.  

Marriage is different in this one respect: it is the only reality that already existed, in a sense, before the fall, before orginal sin.  Adam and Eve already shared in an intimate relationship with God and with each other before the fall.  While the gifts of the Eucharist and Reconcliation seek to bring us back into that intimacy, it was already present in the couple before they ever experienced sin.  In that sense it is the “primordial sacrament” (obviously there is a significant difference when Christ elevates that relationship in the Sacrament of Matrimony).

With the coming of Christ at Christmas, in the gift of the Incarnation, the human family is likewise changed and elevated.  We are invited in Jesus to share in the life of the Trinity and become sons and daughters of God; we are called to be united as brothers and sisters in Christ, extending the intimacy of family life to the entire Body of Christ, the Church.

The readings for this weekend show us the Holy Family: Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.  They reveal to us the grace-filled ideal of the family and what the opening prayer for our Mass declares as the “virtues of family life.”  

The first thing we learn from the Holy Family is the odedience of love.  Five separate times in that brief Gospel passage from St. Luke we hear the same phrase that motivated the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph: “the Law of the Lord.”  It was clearly outlined in the teaching of their faith that they must “redeem” their newborn child and make an offering for Mary’s purification.  What is important for us to reflect on this weekend is that they would not have merely gone through that practice in order to “check the box” and get it over with.  No, they went to the Temple with great love and fidelity; they followed the Law of the Lord joyfully and willingly, because they loved the God who gave it to them.  

The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph teach us the fruitfulness of the obedience of love.  How could they have known that God made a promise to Simeon?  The Lord had promised him that he would not die before he saw the Messiah, the anointed one.  God made his promise dependent upon the free and loving choice of Mary and Joseph to follow the Law of the Lord.  Because they were faithful and followed the Law, Simeon received the promised child in his arms and gave thanks.  Where will our obedience of love bear fruit in the promises God has made to the people that we relate to each day?

The second truth we discover from that encounter with the Holy Family this morning is the tenacity of hope. We are living in a time of the global pandemic where there is a tremendous crisis of hope in the world.  People are fearful of the future and all of the many unresolved questions regarding health, the economy and family life in general.  Simeon’s encounter with the Holy Family teaches us that hope is real and the promises of God ring true.  

Hope is a theological virtue deeply rooted in the memory.  When we hope in the presence and assistance of God in our daily struggles, we are not merely crossing our fingers and practicing wishful thinking.  Our hope that things will work out is based upon all that we remember about God’s faithfulness in the past.  He has always been faithful, always true.  God has always loved us, consistently forgiven us, constantly welcomed and cared for us.  That same God is with us here and now, and He waits for us in the days ahead.  We are never alone, never abandoned, never without hope.  Simeon knew that; he was a man who studied the promises of God, and knew the history of Israel.  Even though he was a man very advanced in years, he did not doubt that God’s promise to him would be fulfilled.  Neither should we.

Finally, that Gospel passage teaches us about the power of silence.  Specifically, we look to St. Joseph’s strong and loving custodity of the child Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In all of Sacred Scripture St. Joseph never speaks, yet his actions speak louder than words and his faithful care of Jesus and Mary reverberates from the pages of the Gospel.  How desperately we need to emulate this silence and its power to attune the soul to the harmonic plan of God. St. Joseph listened to God’s message for him, and he acted on what he heard.  If we want to know God’s plan for our lives and what He is saying to the world around us, then we have to be silent and listen.  We have to be men and women of prayer.  That is what will allow us to bear fruit in our vocation and find fulfillment in life.

If we look to our readings this weeekend, we can reflect on the passage of St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians:

Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as is proper in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives.

—Colossians 3:18-19

That reading always raises some eyebrows when it is read in the Liturgy, and there is much misunderstanding regarding its meaning.  The Church has always taught the equality of the spouses in Christian marriage.  It is not the case that the woman is submissive to the husband and he is free to do as he pleases.  No, there is a mutual submission; the husband must also submit himself to his wife and love her as Christ loves the Church (which is unto death!).  The word “submission” can be literally understood as “under the mission of.”  Clearly St. Joseph places himself under the mission of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  What is that mission?   It is to bring the Messiah into the world and to present Him to us all as the Savior.  St. Joseph, in his powerful silence and care, places everything under that mission as he protects the child when Herod seeks to destroy Him.  He will devout his life to the care of Jesus and Mary, ensuring that the mission of God is accomplished.

Pope Francis has designated 2021 as the Year of St Joseph.  He has written an Apostolic Letter on St. Joseph in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of St. Joseph being named Patron of the Universal Church.  This year we seek to imitate this silent love that is always attentive to God and places itself under the mission that God desires to see fulfilled in the world around us.

Jesus Christ has come to transform the human family, beginning with each and every one of us.  Where can we discover the obedience of love, the tenacity of hope and the power of silence in our daily lives?  May our encounter with the Holy Family continue to lead us more deeply in the “virtues of family life” in these days of celebrating the Lord’s birth.

Rejoice Always!

Venerable Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan

(Gaudete Sunday-Third Sunday of Advent-Year B; This homily was given on December 13, 2020 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Isaiah 61:1-11, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 and John 1:6-28) 

They say that timing is everything.  Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was a young bishop in Vietnam when, in 1975, he was appointed Archbishop of Saigon.  It would give him the opportunity to reach thousands of souls for Christ, to shepherd the Lord’s flock in a way he could have never imagined.  But timing is everything.  Six days after his appointment, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army.  Because of his ardent faith and his family connections to the former regime, the bishop was arrested and imprisoned for 13 years.  Nine of those years were spent in solitary confinement.

In the first days of his captivity he could hear the ringing of the bells of the cathedral in the city of Nha Trang, where he had previously been bishop.  The prison was that close.  Far from becoming bitter about that ironic reality, he would later say, “The Father never abandoned me.”  His deep faith endured through those initial days of trial and he kept his focus on God.

From the outset there were five guards assigned to Van Thuan; they would take shifts, two at a time, watching over him.  At first the leaders determined to change the groups completely every two weeks, fearing the guards would become “contaminated” by this dangerous bishop.   Van Thuan said to himself, “You have the love of Christ in your heart; love them as Jesus loved you.”  The affect on the guards was so powerful that many of them began to consider him a friend and not a prisoner.  The leaders then told the guards, “We’ve decided not to switch you anymore; otherwise this bishop will contaminate all of the police.”  

In 1998, Van Thuan was finally released from prison. Three years later, realizing how contagious the bishop’s faith was, the government “invited” him to leave the country and never come back!  He came to Rome and in 1994 St. John Paul II appointed him Prefect for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.  He was later created a Cardinal.  In 2017 Pope Francis named him venerable, the first step on the way to becoming a canonized saint.  Whether prisoner or prelate, Venerable Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was always a man totally filled with joy; it literally overflowed into the lives of those around him.

Today we celebrate Gaudete Sunday.  That word, Gaudete, is Latin for joy.  The entrance antiphon for this Third Sunday of Advent is taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed the Lord is near” (Philippians 4:4-5).  We rejoice because the celebration of the birth of Christ is nearly upon us, and He is the source of our joy.

In the Second Reading this morning, St. Paul repeats his sentiments from the entrance antiphon when he says, “Rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).  We do well to remember that this is the same man that was imprisoned many times for his faith in Christ.  St. Paul was beaten, scourged, stoned, rejected and scorned by many of his contemporaries.  What he reminds us of, along with Cardinal Van Thuan, is that our joy is not founded on feelings or circumstances but on a person: God, the Holy Spirit.

The 16th Century “Apostle of Rome,” St. Philip Neri would often say that joy is the infallible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  If you find true joy in a person then you will also be able to recognize the presence of God.  Joy, however, is not the same thing as happiness.  The world we live in uses those terms interchangeably, but they are different.  One can be really unhappy about the circumstances of life (like Cardinal Van Thuan or St. Paul would have been when they were deprived of their freedom and treated so shamefully) but at the same time possess the abiding joy of the Holy Spirit.

The Prophet Isaiah announces the Messiah this morning in our First Reading, and how the Spirit of God will bring joy to those in distress.  He writes:

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God.  I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul.

—Isaiah 61:1-2, 10

This Gaudete Sunday, as we draw ever closer to the birth of Christ, we can ask ourselves: “Where will we find joy this Christmas.”  Because it might be found in the circumstances of our lives; it is possible that we will discover that joy in the sentiments of this season, which open us up through beautiful memories and kindness in the present moment.  But there is no guarantee of that reality for all of us.  

There is, however, a promise from God that He will come to us, when we love Him and keep His commandments; that He will make His home in us when we open our hearts to Christ (see John 14:23).  This is the promise of the Holy Spirit, who lived in St. Paul and in Cardinal Van Thuan, and who lives in us through the power of Baptism and the overwhelming grace of God.  Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  We pray this weekend for the Holy Spirit to find a home in our hearts, so that we also might spread that joy to all we encounter this Christmas.

Waiting for God

(Second Sunday of Advent-Year B; This homily was given on December 6, 2020 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See 2 Pet. 3:8-14 and Mk 1:1-8) 

It was Palm Sunday in 1987.  A religious priest living here in Rome was alone in his congregation’s chapel, faithfully observing the practice of Morning Prayer.   One of his responsibilities here in the city was to hear confessions for the novices of the Missionaries of Charity.  Suddenly, as he continued to pray his breviary, he heard a voice deep within his soul saying, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’”  It seemed very strange to him, and he did not quite understand the experience, so he kept praying.  A second time he heard, not with his ears but deep within his soul, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’”  He looked up, somewhat taken aback, at the crucifix on the wall and asked Jesus, “Are you talking to me?”  A third time, he heard what he now understood as a command, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’”  

The priest then wrote a letter to Mother Teresa, asking her pardon for what certainly seemed to be quite odd, and dropped the letter off when he went to hear the confessions of the novices.  The next time he went to the convent, Mother Teresa was there and she confronted him: Are you the priest who heard Jesus say, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst’”?  He said that he was the one who had written the letter.  She asked him what else Jesus said, and the priest answered, “Nothing.”  She asked him what he thought it meant; he answered that he did not know.  What he also did not know was that Mother Teresa had been experiencing a deep thirst for Jesus for a very long time.  She was suffering through a profound sense of aridity and even abandonment in prayer, and had begun to interpret this as a sharing in Jesus’ thirst on the cross.  She understood her work in caring for the poorest of the poor as that of quenching the thirst of Jesus, even as she was continually thirsting and longing for him.

The last quarter of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is dedicated to Christian prayer.  It contains some of the richest teachings of our faith on that intimate life we share with God.  At one point the Catechism reflects on the scene in St. John’s Gospel, and the woman at the well who meets Jesus.  Our Lord turns to her and asks her for a drink of water.  It goes on to make the connection that rests at the center of Christian prayer: “God thirsts that we may thirst for Him” (CCC #2560).  

We are now in the heart of Advent and this time of year always involves a longing and waiting for God.  Hopefully it has reached the depths of our prayer.  We should be longing for and thirsting for God, and that intimacy with Him in the depths of our souls.  It should also extend outward, to see God’s work taking place in the lives of those we love and in the sick and suffering souls we each know and encounter.  Maybe we have even grown tired, waiting for God, wondering what is taking Him so long to act and to answer our prayers.  St. Peter, in the Second Reading this weekend, indicates that we are not the only ones waiting.  In fact, he tells us, God is waiting for us!  He writes, regarding the Second Coming:

The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

—2 Peter 3:9

God is waiting for us to be fully alive in Christ and to orient everything in our lives towards Him.  That word, “repentance” is “metanoia” in Greek, and it literally means to change our minds, our hearts, and to see the world around us with new eyes.  It means to look at God, at our neighbor and even at ourselves in a new way, an attitude that is wide open to the coming of Jesus Christ fully into our lives.  

St. John the Baptist, in the Gospel this weekend, is also teaching us about this preparation for Christ.  He announces:

A voice cries out: "In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!" 

-Isaiah 40:1-3

God wants us to be ready this Advent, to be prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ.  He is longing, yearning and pining for us to be thirsty and ready for Him.  There is a beautiful prayer written in the 16th Century by the great mystic and Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila.  She is reflecting on her tremendous desire for God, her thirst for a life totally immersed in Him.  She knows, theologically, that He is also thirsting for her, and she ponders why these longings together have not been brought to fruition.  She writes:

If the love you have for me, 

is like the love I have for you,

My God, what detains me?

Oh, what is delaying you?

God is thirsting for her thirst, and she longs to be fully united to Him.  She ends by seeking His mercy to prepare her heart for the coming of Jesus Christ:

Lord, make my soul Thine own abode

And I will build a nest so sweet

It may not be too poor for God.

She asks that her soul may be like a nest, so that God can rest in her heart like a dove.  There is a beautiful image for this nest in many of our homes this Advent.  It can be found in many of the churches throughout the city, and there is even an image of it in St. Peter’s Square.  The image is the empty manger, the empty crib, a nest waiting for the infant Christ this Christmas.  

We ask for the grace of God to prepare that nest—through our daily prayer, by our worthy reception of the sacraments and by our works of charity—that it might not be too poor for God.  This Advent, we seek a deeper thirst for the presence of the living God, who we know, beyond all doubt, is longing, pining and thirsting for each of us.