Fr. JC Maximilian

Last week I invited you to reflect on the question first posed by Fr. Ronald Knox, “What would the world be like, if Christmas hadn’t happened?” (Knox, Pastoral and Occasional Sermons, Ignatius Press, p. 422) This week I have another question for us to ponder, “Why did Jesus chose to be born into a human family, with a mother and father?” Certainly the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity could have united our human nature to His Divine Person and come to earth as a fully grown human person. Yet the Mighty God chose to humble Himself by being born as a baby, and subjecting Himself to Mary and Joseph as His parents here on earth. Why? “In part, to reveal God’s plan to make all people live as one ‘holy family’ in His Church” (St. Paul Center for Bibilical Theology, Breaking the Bread, “Our True Home,” December 2006, p. 3).

God did not create us just to be His servants, but to be His sons and daughters, or as our first reading puts it, “chosen ones, holy and beloved.” Throughout Sacred Scripture God reveals Himself as a loving Father, and that our true home is eternal union with the Trinity. “The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2205). In today’s Gospel reading Mary and Joseph are repeatedly referred to as Jesus’ parents, so that Jesus’ first words recorded in St. Luke’s Gospel, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”, could emphasize that all of earthly familial relationships must be rooted in the Fatherhood of God. We are then told in today’s Gospel reading that Jesus went home with Mary and Joseph, and was obedient to them. Jesus’ obedience to His earthly parents flows directly from His obedience to the will of His heavenly Father (Breaking the Bread, p. 3).

The Second Vatican Council referred to the family as the “domestic church,” and describes it as a community of faith, hope, and charity (Lumen Gentium, #11). The Council Fathers go on and says, “The Christian family proclaims aloud both the present power of the kingdom of God and the hope of the life to come” (Lumen Gentium, #11). The Christian family must be a living witness to Christ by being a community of love and faith in all circumstances. Like any society, the family, as the original cell of social life, must be well ordered, with each member bearing, in love, certain duties and responsibilities.

The most basic duty of children, as stated in the Fourth Commandment, is to honor and respect their parents. This honor and respect given to one’s parents reflects the honor and respect we are called to give to God, and is derived from gratitude toward those by whom one has received the most precious gift of all – Life! Christian children show respect for their parents by obedience to them. “As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family” (CCC #2217). As St. Paul says in today’s Second Reading, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.” Only when a child is convinced in their well-formed conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order, can they disobey their parents. Note that I said only when they are following their WELL-FORMED conscience may they disobey. Not because they don’t want to do it, or they don’t like what they have been asked to do, or because it is difficult to do. Rather, it is when guided by the teachings of the Church, they know that they would be doing something IMMORAL that they can disobey their parents, and this is because they are then obeying their heavenly Father who has written the Divine Law on their hearts and teaches it through the Church. While obedience toward parents ceases when a child becomes emancipated, respect is ALWAYS owed to them. “This respect has its roots in the fear of God, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit” (CCC #2217).

Grown children also have responsibilities towards their parents. “As much as they can, they must give them material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress” (CCC #2218).

The duties of parents, born in love, include the obvious ones of feeding their children, providing them adequate clothing and shelter, and caring for their health and education. However the duties of Christian parenthood goes much further because our Christian Faith tells us that this world is passing away, and that our true home is Heaven. “Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law” (CCC #2222).

Lumen Gentium says “The parents by word and example are the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children” (#11). Parents are the principle catechists for their children, and they begin this education in the faith by associating their children from their tenderest years with the life of the Church. Pope Paul VI, recalled to us by Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, summarizes Christian parents’ duties to their children in this way; “Do you teach your children the Christian prayers? Do you prepare them, in conjunction with the priests, for the sacraments that they receive when they are young: Confession, Communion and Confirmation? Do you encourage them when they are sick to think of Christ suffering, to invoke the aid of the Blessed Virgin and the saints? Do you say the family rosary together? … Do you pray with your children, with the whole domestic community, at least sometimes? Your example of honesty in thought and action, joined to some common prayer, is a lesson for life, an act of worship of singular value. In this way you bring peace to your homes…. Remember, it is thus that you build up the Church” (Pope Paul IV, General Audience Address, August 11, 1976: Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, XIV, 640).

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph provides a model for us of true family life, and they strengthen us with their prayers. Jesus, “You, who by being born into a family, strengthen family bonds, let there be an increase in unity within the family.”