Greetings,
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas spending time with family, opening up presents, being with one another.  Christmas can be a wonderful time being with family and friends, and most importantly celebrating the birth of our Savior!  But it can also be a very painful time for some.
Last weekend we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph make up what is perhaps the most holy and healthy family to ever exist.  Can you imagine the intimacy between the three of them during dinner conversations?  I wonder what they talked about?  What their favorite things to share with each other were?  I am sure that they were very poor and yet, at the same time, the richest family of all, because of their near perfect love for each other.  But here in this time, over 2000 years later, I wonder what we talk about at dinner?   How do we show our love for one another? 
Now of course we have to remember that the Holy Family had almost a perfect love for one another with St. Joseph bringing up the rear.  There were no defense mechanisms or hurts and wounds in Jesus’ family, only complete and total authenticity.  Jesus is God, Mary is the Immaculate Conception and Joseph is perhaps one of the greatest saints of all time.  And I think our gospel story last Sunday, of the finding of Jesus in the temple, serves two purposes in Luke.  The first purpose is theological and I think, reaffirms the divine mission of Jesus.  He is here, to be about his Father’s work, and not even family ties should interfere with that mission.  It is very similar with us.  As important as family is for us, it should always be secondary to what God wants and calls us to do.  Our very happiness lies in discovering, choosing and then living the plan that God has laid out for us.  Family may or may not support us in this.  But if we want to share eternal life and even experience that peace and joy that surpasses all understanding in this life… then we must learn to always put God first in our daily lives.  And it appears that Jesus is shown to be aware of his unique relationship with the Father at the early age of twelve.
So what makes up a holy and healthy family…?  I believe that priests should be or become experts on family life.  The family is what the Catholic Church calls the Domestic church.  It is where the parents model a good example of Christian living and where the children first learn about God, the angels and saints… Remember that children observe their parents very closely.  When mom and dad are kind and gentle, open and honest, generous… the children will grow up being the same way and will choose friends who relate that same way.  Even choose perhaps future spouses that relate with those same qualities.  A holy and healthy family is one that does the will of God.  Being in his will demands love, respect and self-sacrifice.  Knowing God’s will, takes prayer and discernment.  Remember that…

-Joseph followed God’s will when he took Mary for his wife, despite her pregnancy.
-At the Annunciation, Mary submitted to God’s will even though it may have meant being stoned to death.
-Jesus’ submission to God’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane led him to the cross.  “Not my will, but your will be done.”
-We follow God’s will whenever we choose his way over the world’s way. 

We already belong to the holiest of families – God’s family.  The second reading tells us that we are God’s children now!  The original Holy Family is the Trinity… Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a love relationship from and for all eternity.  From that holy beginning, we become members of many families in this life… a birth family, a family of choice, a religious community.  Right now, in our church, we are a church family, united by the Holy Spirit, sharing the one Christ in Holy Communion.  Christ alive in us, unites us, works through us and makes us holy – that makes us family. 

Peace, Fr. Tom

Greetings,

Down through the ages, from Adam and Eve, through Noah and the Ark, to Abraham and the twelve tribes of Israel, through Moses and then King David, through the prophets of Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah all the way down to Jesus himself, God has slowly revealed himself to the chosen people, the Jewish peoples. Of course, God chooses to visit poor humanity, being born of the Virgin Mary with St. Joseph, his foster father present at the stable in the cold of night, in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant made by God with the Jewish people. Jesus is made in the image of the Father revealing to us a kind gentle God that loves us all very much. So much so that he comes to be with us as a savior and an intimate personal friend. He comes not to condemn us but rather to save us from our sins. Always try to remember that the heart of the law is Mercy! And when He does choose to be one of us, he comes in deep humility being born of a poor peasant family in Mary and Joseph. Jesus, who is fully God and fully human in all things but sin (we call this the Incarnation) comes into this world first greeted by a loving mother and foster father, by the animals in the stable with him, the chosen poor shepherds alerted to his presence by the announcement of the angels in heaven, then given three gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh) befit a great King, by the three Magi. God, in the person of Jesus, comes to poor humanity in the quiet of the dark of night, is received by the poor and humble and treated as the great King of the universe He is, by the Magi. Jesus comes to reveal to us a God that loves us beyond our comprehension.
We are all part of God’s extended family. We are brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters of the Most High. Our Blessed Mother is the Mother of God and our mother (we celebrate this as a Holy Day of Obligation on the Solemnity of Mary as the Mother of God on January 1st), and St. Joseph our father and friend, all the angels and saints as our brothers, sisters, and friends. Let us remember that Jesus teaches that authentic love is that which desires others to get to heaven and of course, to help them get there especially through our prayer and good example. And that all of heaven is with us on our journey in this life to a deeper faith, conversion of heart, and change within so strongly demanded by the Gospel.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Season filled with the joy of the One who was promised and comes to visit us, our savior Jesus Christ.

Peace, Fr. Tom