[Salvation]

Sunday – Feast of the Holy Family

Being Part of a Family

In Jesus’ time, the little town of Nazareth had about 100 people. It was a hick town on a hill up north. It’s never mentioned in Scripture until Jesus is associated with it.

As towns and society were back then, most everybody in that town would have been a relative of Jesus. In the Mideast, especially back then, families and extended families lived in light quarters, near one another, and were part of each other’s lives.

We can forget about our images of Jesus quietly sitting with his father, Joseph, in the carpenter shop, watching him make a chair. Jesus was thrown together with cousins, in-laws, people of all kinds and rubbed elbows with them. He was in the thick of family and there was no getting away from it.

If, over the holidays, you experience a large family get-together, that’s what Jesus experienced every day of his life until he left Nazareth.

Family life requires a lot of indirect kindness that you hope will have an effect. Maybe it won’t. But you just try to be kind and understanding, and you just do your best. You can’t directly move in and change things. And to be honest, the chemistry in an enormous extended family can’t all be good.

But society can’t do without families. There’s never been a society in the recorded history of the human race, that was worth anything that didn’t have family, and families that managed.

And that’s what we’re all part of. That’s what we celebrate on this Holy Family Sunday. Jesus was part of that kind of an extended group, in close quarters.

The Lord has been there. He knew what that was like.

Spend some quiet time with the Lord.

[Salvation]

Monday, December 27, 2004

Feast of St. John the Apostle

John and his brother James were partners in a fishing business with two other brothers – Peter and Andrew. In Matthew, they are the first four disciples called by Jesus.

John is mentioned 20 times in the Gospels (though never in the Gospel that bears his name); Peter, James and John had an especially close relationship to the Lord. For example, Jesus brought only them to witness the Transfiguration.

It is said that John was a young man when called to be a disciple, and lived to a ripe old age. One tradition says that in his last days his disciples would carry him into the church. Unable to give a lengthy sermon, he would simply repeat the words: “Children, love one another.” His disciples, hearing this repeatedly, became impatient: “Master, why do you always say the same thing?” John replied, Because it is the Lord’s own commandment. And if you did nothing more, it would suffice.”

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John is often identified as the mysterious “beloved disciple” in John’s Gospel. But some scholars suggest that this nameless person was a disciple who during Jesus’ life time seemed a minor figure. Then in the early Christian community he emerged as a person of great faith. But by the time John’s Gospel was finished no one remembered his name.

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Unlike other saints, an apostle’s feast always takes precedence over the daily weekday sequence for liturgy.