MULTIPLE OPTIONS - FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY (12/26/2021)

FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

December 26, 2021

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14 or 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28
Psalm 128 or 84
Colossians 3:12-21 or 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24
Luke 2:41-52

MULTIPLE OPTIONS

Football teams aren't the only ones who run options! Today's liturgy offers a number of them: alternate possibilities for the first reading, responsorial psalm and second reading...even for the Alleluia Verse. 

Today, we honor and celebrate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The readings contain instructions for Christian families as well. Because the traditional readings are so well suited to family life and the alternates less so, it is not completely clear why the options were even added.

FIRST READING

SIRACH - This reading, the traditional one, gives a strong exhortation regarding the honor that children owe to their parents, with corresponding promises and rewards. 

1 SAMUEL - Samuel's mother, Hannah, conceived a long-awaited son and brings him to the Temple, offering him to the Lord as a perpetual nazirite. 

RESPONSORIAL

PSALM 128 - Traditional for this feast, this psalm describes the blessings of a family who fears the Lord and walks in his ways.

PSALM 84 - This psalm expresses a deep desire to dwell in the house of the Lord and would seem to fit well with the reading from 1 Samuel.

SECOND READING

COLOSSIANS - This reading from Colossians is the traditional one for today and brings out the moral virtues needed in family life (and elsewhere) as well as the Scriptural plan for order, mutual love and peace in family life.

1 JOHN - This optional reading emphasizes the love of God for us. It speaks about faith, love and the Holy Spirit. This is indeed a beautiful reading but its connection to today's feast doesn't appear readily obvious.

GOSPEL

The Jewish people were traditionally obligated to make pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year - for Sukkot (Booths or Tabernacles, in the fall), Pesach (Passover, in the spring), and Shavuot (Pentecost, fifty days after Passover). The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph were faithful in keeping the prescriptions of the Jewish Law.

The gospel says that the Holy Family made the 90-mile trek in a caravan from Nazareth to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. When Jesus was twelve, he stayed behind while his parents and relatives left to return home. After searching for Jesus for three days, Mary and Joseph found him in the temple, where he was listening to the teachers and asking them questions.

We are told that his parents were "astonished." When his mother asked Jesus why he had done this, he answered, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Years later, he would drive out the buyers and sellers who were making his Father's house a "den of thieves.")

For now, the gospel makes it a point to say that the family traveled back to Nazareth together and that Jesus was "obedient to them." In the crypt below the church in Nazareth built over the traditional "House of Joseph," there is a plaque on the floor that reads:  hic erat subditus illis - "here he was obedient to them".

This gospel is a perfect one for the Feast of the Holy Family. (No options here, thank goodness!)

FAMILY LIFE TODAY

One of the greatest crises today, in a world full of them, concerns marriage and family life. The answer is very simple but at the same time very difficult.  Simple - making Jesus Christ Lord of the home and all family members.  Difficult - actually living according to the Lord's commands regarding life and love, sexuality and reproduction.

As we honor the Holy Family of Nazareth today, let us ask the risen Lord Jesus to send upon all families the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. Only in that way can we experience peace, love and order in family life according to the Father's will.