Readings:
Sir 3:2-6, 12-14
Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5.
Col 3:12-21 or 3:12-17
Lk 2:41-52
This time last year, I had just given birth to my firstborn son and was celebrating the Feast of the Holy Family with my new, little family. His birth broke open a wildly beautiful and humbling new vocation for me– the vocation of motherhood. In those first few weeks adjusting to this new way of being in the world, I experienced the immense feeling of agape– God’s boundless love, for this new little being for whom I gave of my body and blood to nourish and protect. I, like Hannah in today’s first reading, “had asked the Lord for him” and “prayed for this child” many months before he entered this world.
One of the hardest lessons that I’ve had to learn in this first year of motherhood is that as much as I want to make sure that he never experiences pain or suffering, he will inevitably feel hurt, or even encounter danger, that is beyond my control. I can’t imagine the feeling that Mary must have felt when they had lost Jesus for three whole days, and anxiously returned to Jerusalem to find him, as today’s Gospel narrates. She had already done so much for him to keep him from danger by fleeing from persecution as refugees shortly after his birth. Along with her husband, Joseph, they raised him, nourished him, and gave of their entire selves to keep him alive in a foreign land, until it was safe to return home.
As I look around our world today, I see so many holy families trying to protect their children from danger. Migrants and refugees who are traveling across rivers, deserts, and entire countries to keep their families alive, only to find themselves without a place to rest their heads in a foreign land. Mothers holding their babies amidst the rubble of a land torn apart by war, unable to protect them from starvation or violence. Today, on the Feast of the Holy Family, let us pray that our eyes be opened to see each family in need of protection as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in our midst. May we put on the virtues of heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, as we practice the agape love that our Creator God shows to us as children. Although we can’t keep our children from ever experiencing any pain or suffering, we can put our faith in an all-loving, healing God, and work to practice radically hospitality to all of the families that we meet.
Dr. Karen Ross, PhD