Becoming a holy family: Homily for Sunday, December 29, 2024

Being a parish family means a commitment to sharing with the world the blessings given to us. Readings for the day.

Becoming a holy family

One thing I find interesting when reading the newspaper are the stories that touch on some aspect of Christian faith. I find it provides an interesting window into how non-believers see the Church.

Among the articles I read this week, two articles caught my attention. The first was an opinion piece by David French, a columnist for the New York Times. The title of his piece was, “Why are so many Christians cruel?”

In the second paragraph of the opinion piece, he writes this. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard someone say something like: I’ve experienced blowback in the secular world, but nothing prepared me for church hate. Christian believers can be especially angry and even sometimes vicious.”

In my experience this is sadly sometimes true. But this was contrasted by a piece written by another New York Times columnist, David Brooks. He had a religious experience on the New York Subway, under thirty-third street and eighth avenue. He writes, “One morning in April, I was in a crowded subway car underneath thirty-third Street and Eighth Avenue in New York (truly one of the ugliest spots on this good green earth). I looked around the car, and I had this shimmering awareness that all the people in it had souls. Each of them had some piece of themselves that had no size, color, weight or shape but that gave them infinite value. The souls around me that day seemed not inert but yearning — some soaring, some suffering or sleeping; some were downtrodden and crying out.”

In describing another experience, he says this: “Most of the time we go through life governed by a straightforward logic: Practice makes perfect, effort leads to reward, winners get admired. But here was a moral logic radically at odds with that: The meek shall be exalted, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, where there is humility there is majesty, where there is weakness there is might.”

Though he is Jewish, he finds deep meaning in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus delivers his sermon on the mount, and recites what we know as the Beatitudes.

When I read these columns, I found myself asking a question. Do I share the Good News in a way that a Jewish man can make sense of an experience of God and ask further questions? Or am I a cruel Christian who drives people away?

On this feast of the Holy Family, we live in a world where the family is under some stress. Too many find their lives less than ideal. The question becomes do we invite people into our parish and provide them welcome. Are we the “field hospital’, the Church described by Pope Francis, or a parish where only those who have their lives all put together? Worse yet, do we make judgements about people, either in Church or those we see when we are out and about, and make quick judgements even though we often know little or nothing about them?

In my short experience in this parish, I can see that we are welcoming. People work hard in places like the Saint Margaret of Costello center, treating people with kindness and respect.

But if this is true, it begs the question. How often do we see someone who is broken, and invite them to join us at church? How often do we first listen to someone’s story to understand them? Do we present to them our witness to welcome people as Jesus did, who ate with tax collectors and sinners, who spent time with the outcasts of his day?

For at the heart of our baptism is the Great Commission. In the gospel of Saint Matthew, Jesus tells us this:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

So many families, including our own, need to know that in their faith is the healing presence of Jesus, who heals brokenness and forgives sins.

Your family might have been one of great blessings. Then, be sure to thank God. But for others, family might be a struggle. Welcome them. And for most of us, it is probably a mix of both. But you are here because you have found that a relationship with Jesus fulfills you in ways nothing else can. So, listen to Jesus. Seek to invite members into the family of Saint Dominic Parish. And pray as members of this family, we too become holy.

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