FIRST READING: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14. The Lord honored the father above the children, and he confirmed the right of the mother over her sons. Whoever honors his father atones for sins, and whoever glorifies his mother is like one who lays up treasure. Whoever honors his father will be gladdened by his own children, and when he prays he will be heard. Whoever glorifies his father will have long life, and whoever obeys the Lord will refresh his mother. O son, help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives; even if he is lacking in understanding, show forbearance, in all your strength do not despise him. For kindness to a father will not be forgotten, and against your sins it will be credited to you. EXPLANATION: The author of this book was a pious Jew who lived in the second century B.C. He had made a deep study of the law and the revealed religion of his people, and moved by the love of God, of his Law, and of his religion, he wrote a collection of wise maxims to help others live a life pleasing to God. In the verses read today he speaks of the family: the Lord...the father: In God's plan for the spread of the human race, the family unit has its foundation. The father has the place of honor and the right to respect and obedience.
right of the mother: The mother shares the authority with the father in the home. It is God's will and decree that their authority be respected by the children.
honors his father...glorifies his mother: The children who respect and obey their parents are doing God's will and are thereby giving glory to God and storing up spiritual reward for themselves.
gladdened by...children: The son (or daughter) who respects his parents will in turn be respected by his own children. God will bless him or her with children who will be dutiful and respectful in turn.
when he prays: Because he is pleasing to God, his prayers will be answered.
glorifies...long life: A long life was looked on as a divine blessing. It is that, if properly lived. The longer we can work for God (and neighbor) in this life the greater the reward in heaven.
will refresh his mother: The obedient child is a comfort and a source of joy for his mother (and father). He will be obedient to his parents if he is obedient to God---this is one of God's commandments.
help your father in...age: It is in his later days a father needs the loving care of his children. Natural instinct and decency would demand this of children, but a greater authority still---the divine will---demands this of them.
do not grieve him: What greater grief could a father have in his old age than to have raised a son of whom he has to be ashamed. The child who has learned to respect his parents is respecting God, and will never cause his parents to be ashamed of him.
if...understanding: No matter how feeble, mentally or physically, one's parents may become, it is the children's duty to care for them. Those parents, when they had their health and strength, devoted their energies to their children---the children must now do their part.
kindness...not forgotten: God will repay the dutiful child. The kindness he shows his parents in their need is as good as, and better than any sacrifice he can offer in the temple. If he displeases God by neglecting his duty to his parents, no sacrifice of his can be acceptable to God.
credited to you: The full effects of obedience and respect for parents will have a lasting effect on the character of the child and its reward will be everlasting. APPLICATION: Although all the emphasis, in these verses of holy Scripture just read to us, seems to be on the obligation of children to their parents, there is a profound lesson here for parents too. "Like father like son" is an old and a true saying very often. If the parents fail to do what is right and just in the sight of God they can hardly complain if their children turn out disobedient to God and to them. The young learn more from example than from precept. If parents give their children the example of a life of obedience to the laws of God, and their country---the children will in turn carry out their duties to God, to their parents and to their fellowman. There have been and there will be exceptions, of course, to this rule but they are exceptions; the vast majority follow the pattern laid down for them by their parents. As you heard during your marriage ceremony: "children are a gift from God to you," a gift for this life to be the joy of your young years and a help and comfort in your old age; but above and beyond that, they are a gift which you must do all in your power to return to God when their hour comes. You must not only strive to make them good citizens of this world but you must never forget that God gave them to you primarily so that you would make them citizens of heaven. You may fail, in spite of your best intentions and endeavors, but God will reward you nonetheless---the failure will not be laid to your door. Today, on the feast-day of the only perfect family that ever lived on this earth, I would ask all parents to examine themselves and see how they are fulfilling this grave responsibility---which God has placed on them. Are they preparing their children by word and example, especially by example, to be worthy citizens of heaven where they will be their parents' crown and glory?
SECOND READING: Colossians 3:12-21. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. EXPLANATION: It was Epaphras, a disciple of St. Paul, who preached the Christian message in the town of Colossae. Paul took a keen interest in the work of his disciples. While a prisoner in Rome, Epaphras came to visit him and told him his converts were being disturbed by false teachers. Paul wrote a letter to the Colossians encouraging them to persevere in the true faith, based on the solid foundation of Christ's divinity, and to keep on living a true Christian life according to the teaching of Christ---preached to them by Epaphras. He gave them some very practical rules for an ideal Christian life, a few of which have been read to us today.
put on then...patience: These Christian virtues so necessary in a community must be in their heart---part and parcel of themselves. In accepting Christianity they accepted a new life.
forgiving each other: Even Christians could forget their Christian obligations and injure their neighbor but the injured one must always be ready to forgive the offender.
as the Lord has forgiven you: The Lord wiped out all their sins in Baptism and is ever ready to wash away the sins of a repentant sinner. The true Christian must imitate God in this and quickly and willingly forgive a repentant brother.
love...perfect: The virtues mentioned above are compared to new garments which are put on, but the final outer garment which binds and keeps the others in place is charity---true Christian, brotherly love.
peace of Christ...hearts: Christ is the source of unity, harmony and peace. His followers form one compact community---one body, with Christ as its head.
word of Christ...you: Christians must not only know the doctrine of Christ, they must live it and produce fruits worthy of it.
teach...one another: One member must help the other as in the human body.
in the name of the Lord Jesus: Because they are members of Christ's Body, their every act has a divine value. It is as members of Christ's body that they honor God the Father, their acts give special honor to him.
wives, be subject: Paul gets down to details now. The Christian faith is lived in the Christian home by each member doing his or her duty. It is duty that is stressed here not rights, As "the husband is head of the wife, as Christ is head of the Church" (Eph. 5 : 23), the wife must be subject to him---but in no servile way---it is a loving subjection for the good of the family.
husbands, love your wives: This may sound commonplace today but in the pagan world of St. Paul's time wives were little more than chattels, they were the "property" of the husband and were often treated cruelly and harshly. Christianity changed all that.
children, obey your parents: The family circle is God's place for the spread of the human race. He could have created, and could continue to create human beings in the prime of life, each one capable of running his own life. He chose the better way, we can rest assured. Parents have the responsibility of preparing their children to take their place in life, and what wonderful virtues are developed in parents because of this responsibility! Children on the other hand, have their obligations as soon as they come to the use of reason, the basic obligation of which is obedience to their parents. Through this obedience they will learn to take their place in life and more important still it is through this obedience that they will learn to obey God and reach eternal life.
do not provoke...discouraged: Fathers (and mothers too) must teach their children to obey not out of fear but out of love and respect. Obedience given out of fear is not true obedience and is not a training for the child's future life. A loving interest in the child's true welfare must be the motive behind every command and every reprimand. APPLICATION: Ninety per cent of the first readers of St. Paul's letter---the first Christian converts of the town of Colossae---were pagans before their conversion. To practice the new Christian virtues was no easy task for people reared in the laxity and license of the paganism of their day. Yet they did practice these virtues and produced many saints and martyrs. After twenty centuries of Christianity one would expect that to live a full Christian life today should be less difficult but unfortunately it is not so. For the fact is our world is rapidly sinking back again into paganism----a paganism more inimical to truth and morality than the paganism of St. Paul's day. The pagans of the Roman Empire were tired of vice and worldliness---they were looking for the truth and the real purpose of life. They found it in Christianity and cherished it. Today's neo-pagans are tired of Christianity---they have found it wanting, because they are found wanting in its observance. What was once the Christian world is today divided into two opposing factions, on one side those who openly deny the existence of God and of a future world; on the other, those who for all practical purposes care not whether God exists and whose only care is for the wealth, pleasure and power of this world. These factions are not in opposition because of any creed or doctrine; it is not dogma that divides them. Both parties have the same idols, themselves; their temples are identical, their banks and their stock-exchanges. No wonder then that true Christians find the practice of their Christian life difficult today, no wonder that the youth of the world is bewildered and baffled, the winds of falsehood are blowing on them from all sides. But it is not by banner-waving and protest-marching that our world can be saved from itself. Nothing but a return to the gospel of Christ and to the virtues that gospel demands of us can bring sanity back to the world. Where God is forgotten there is no happiness for man. Where the peace of Christ does not reign there is nothing but strife and hostility among men. Where there is no faith and hope in a future life, the present world is already hell. Let us begin in our own family circle to bring sanity back to our world. Let us have the true peace of Christ in our hearts and in our home, each one carrying out the task God has allotted to him. We shall not convert the world immediately but we shall have made a start. The world is the sum-total of its individual families.
GOSPEL: Matthew 2:13-15; 19-23. When the wise men had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt have I called my son." But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." And he rose and took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, "He shall be called a Nazarene." EXPLANATION: Herod, the King in Jerusalem, had heard from the Magi that the Messiah, the "King of the Jews," was born. Unpopular though he was, he saw in this birth a danger to his own position. So, he determined that this newly-born Messiah would never reach the throne. Through an angel God told Joseph to take the Holy Family to Egypt to escape his evil clutches. Then when Herod died, Joseph was told once more to return to Israel. He returned to Nazareth and there the Holy Family settled, living a humble life with Joseph the carpenter, their bread-winner. It is not known when St. Joseph died, but Mary and Jesus continued to live in Nazareth until the time had come for Jesus to begin his public life, when he was about 30 years of age (Lk. 3: 23).
Herod . . . him: The massacre of the Holy Innocents proved Herod's intentions, but God knew this and got the Holy Child away in time together with his blessed Mother and St. Joseph.
He rose . . . child: Joseph accepted the angel's command without hesitation, knowing that it came from God. He knew already that this child was someone very special, as is clear from Matthew 1: 18-21. He headed for Egypt, a journey of ten to twelve days over desolate lands, without a word or murmur of complaint.
Out of Egypt . . . Son: Matthew, writing his gospel for Jewish converts, and possible converts, loses no opportunity to show that the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ. Here the return of the Holy Family from Egypt is said to fulfill the prophecy in Hosea 11: 1. This prophet was actually referring to the Exodus, when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt and made them his Chosen People and his children. The coming of Christ was the second and the real Exodus and the founding of the true Chosen People, because it made all men really sons of God.
Archelaus reigned: Archelaus had a reputation somewhat like his father. Joseph therefore did not return to Bethlehem but to Nazareth, his original home-town and also Mary's. They had not returned there after the birth of our Lord because Joseph, a carpenter, had most probably found better employment in Bethlehem and decided to settle there.
called a Nazarene: Again Matthew finds a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy in the fact that Jesus grew to manhood in Nazareth. There is no evident prophecy to this effect, but Isaiah's description of the Messiah as "a root from the stump of Jesse," may have been in Matthew's mind as he wrote his gospel. The Hebrew word for "root" is "Neser," from which Matthew may have thought "Nazarene" and "Nazareth" were derived. APPLICATION: During this holy season of Christmas, Jesus, Mary and Joseph should be remembered frequently by every Christian. To help us to remember them and above all to strive to imitate them, the Church has dedicated this Sunday to the memory of the Holy Family. Although they were God's closest friends, and although they were the holiest family that ever lived, or ever will live, on earth, they had more than their share of this world's troubles and cares. Today's gospel story tells us of some of these earthly woes and sufferings. They had just settled in Bethlehem, and the Baby Jesus was only a few months old when, to avoid his murder at the hands of the murderous and jealous Herod, they had to flee from Bethlehem and become displaced persons in a foreign and pagan land. The journey itself, some 300 miles across a desert, was a frightening, exhausting and dangerous experience. The search for some place to live in a foreign land, the difficulty for Joseph in finding employment in an unfriendly land, so that they could have the bare necessities of life, and the constant fear for the welfare and survival of the blessed child committed to their care, must have been experiences that Joseph and Mary never could forget. Why, we may well ask, did God allow this to happen to his dearest and nearest friends on earth? The answer is: he did it for our sakes. He sent his divine Son, as one of us, on earth to bring us to heaven and he chose a life for Christ, as well as for his blessed Mother and his foster-father St. Joseph, which would be a model and source of encouragement for the lowliest, and the poorest, and the most persecuted of all those who would ever be his followers. With the example of the sufferings and poverty of the Holy Family of Nazareth before their minds, no Christian family can ever say that their sufferings and hardships are more than God can demand of them. No believing Christian can ever say that Christ is asking of him more than he demanded of himself, and of his beloved Mother and foster-father. There are few, if any, families in this world who do not have to face troubles and trials of one kind or another. But our Christian faith, and our firm conviction, that our few short years on this earth are only a proving ground, a preparation, for a life of endless peace and happiness to come, should give us the necessary strength to bear with them. The message of today's gospel story is a message of encouragement and consolation for every one of us. If the holiest and greatest family that ever lived on earth, suffered such trials and hardships all for our salvation, surely we should be ready and willing to suffer and bear with the trials that God sends us for our own eternal welfare.-a043
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