Search
-
January 10, 2024After the glory of Christmas Day has come and gone, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family, the “true model of life” for those who seek to offer the gift of their own family life back to the One who has drawn us into the perfect love of the Trinity by the total outpouring of his love upon the cross. Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus walked the narrow way of this world, growing in love for one another, seeking the will of the Father, and striving and struggling through the difficulties and dangers that came their way.
As I reflect on such a wonderful mystery, I find an inexpressible joy stirring within my heart for the gift of the family my gracious God has given to me. And yet, I am also so keenly aware of my many failures as a husband and father, as well as the ways in which my heavenly Father has brought beauty from the ashes of my sinful missteps along the way. But that is the blessing of being a family man – to witness day by day the ways in which God takes such an imperfect, sinful, and self-seeking individual and molds him more and more into someone who walks with his wife and children along the same path of perfection the Holy Family took so many years ago.
A Series of Sacred Movements
In the Gospels, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are always on the move. Theirs is a journey that takes them ever forward along the way of salvation, a way of faith and surrender. Our Lady and Saint Joseph take in Gabriel’s words of promise, not knowing the particulars of what lies ahead, and walk the roads that lead them from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Egypt and back to Nazareth once more.
They seek refuge in a humble stable, yet hear the awe-filled story of the shepherds, the glory of the angelic host still shining in their eyes. They bring the infant Jesus to the temple to fulfill the law, mirroring the sacrifice he would one day make to purify humanity from sin. They marvel at the prophetic words the Holy Spirit gives to Simeon and Anna, words that echo Mary’s Magnificat. They receive the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the Magi, symbols of the divinity, humanity, and sacrificial nature of their Son. And then, they make haste to journey to Egypt in fulfillment of prophecy as they escape the cruelty of the mad King Herod, and await their call to return to their home to face the days ahead.
My own story has not been quite so faithful, but still I see the hand of God in it all. How little I knew when I met my bride those many years ago, that the journey ahead would entail times of great wonder and trial. As we made our way on that same road of salvation, I confess that I made many mistakes, often out of my own selfish and immature desire for the bigger, better deal. Sometimes, I even thought I was honoring God by my decisions, especially when I moved my family to take on new ministry jobs. But unlike Mary and Joseph who pondered their experiences and moved forward in obedience, I often failed to see the deeper meaning of these life events or the divine hand moving me along to places of greater understanding. Still, the Holy Spirit continued lovingly leading me and my family ever along the path to home and new and brighter days.
The Humility of Faithful Parenting
The Scriptures tell us little of the life of the Holy Family after their return to Nazareth, other than the episode at the temple when our Lord was 12 years old. We see glimpses of Jesus’ divinity in his answers to the teachers of the law and his enigmatic reply to his mother’s anxious words. We are also told that our Lord “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 3:52). How marvelous it is to imagine the wonder of Mary and Joseph as they watched Jesus grow from baby to boy and beyond, to know that the Son of God had chosen to experience life to the full, in order to fulfill all righteousness that we might be able to follow in his footsteps.
This is what the role of a family man is all about – taking responsibility for loving our wives and raising our sons and daughters, while being overwhelmed at how God’s mysterious grace works in their lives as together we grow in our experience of family.
Being a husband and father has been a lot like answering a prophetic call, where the extraordinary power of grace lived out through faith is manifested in the ordinary everyday occurrences of family life. I, along with my bride, have experienced the absolute delight of witnessing first steps and first words, of sharing in the giftedness of my children at violin concerts, dance recitals, and musical theater. What a joy it has been to excite these young minds by reading them stories in my big easy chair or walking with them along a trail on a vacation in the mountains. Each day has been an opportunity to share the values of our faith with our children; and to see them take these values and make them their own is truly a wonder indeed.
In more recent years as I witness the progress of my adult children, I am truly humbled by the reality that God has allowed a man like me to share in the wonder of their lives. I see the incredible sacrificial love their mother has shown them through the years, and I am led to love her even more. The days were not always so easy, though they were always grace-filled. Of course, there were arguments, times of struggle, tiny and terrible crises, and all the many other trials and joys of working through our salvation with fear and trembling. But through it all, God has taught me to move beyond my own selfishness, anger, and pride to see the salvific value in our journey together, and to become a more faith-filled man of God.
The Necessity of Change
As the years past, things changed for the Holy Family. Joseph passed away and found his way into the arms of the Almighty. Jesus left his mother’s side to begin his ministry, and Mary stepped into the sandals of faithful follower and Queen Mother to the King of kings. The relationship of our Lady to her Son moved beyond childrearing to following her Lord as his best disciple. Now, she who had been granted the authority to care for her young Son became the Woman, the new Eve, whose final words in the Gospels were, “Do whatever he tells you.” (John 2:4). She followed Jesus to the cross, allowing the sword of sorrow to pierce her heart as she watched him pour out his life for the sins of the world. In the end, as Jesus gave her to John, the Beloved Disciple, Mary took her place as mother to all who would come into this new family of faith.
I have watched my children grow to adulthood and move to a new phase in life. My son graduated college, took on a writing job, and moved into his own home. My older daughter likewise left to marry and begin a life of ministry with her new husband. And my younger daughter went away to college to seek her way in the world. In some ways the changes have been bitter-sweet. I miss the days when they were babies and young children, when solving their problems seemed much simpler; and I delighted in their journey of discovery every day. But I see that this new time is still an indescribable joy, as I watch my children walk the road of salvation as adults, discovering new trials and triumphs along the way.
While in some ways I have had to let go of my children, I see also that the bonds we share have grown even stronger as they have been transformed by God’s grace. My children will always be my children and my heart will ache for them when they hurt. I will be their greatest cheerleader and will always remind them how awesome and beautiful they truly are because of Christ. But our relationship has also become something more wonderful than I could have ever imagined, and I see our connection in Jesus even more clearly, as I look forward with eager anticipation to what is to come.
A Son, a Family Man
We have been blessed through the Holy Family by their devotion to one another and their total surrender to their place in salvation’s story. It is so powerful that we need no words from Saint Joseph to know that he loved, protected, and cared for Mary and Jesus with perfect fidelity to God’s will. We see in Mary’s grace-filled words and selfless love for her Son, a perfect example of what belonging to the family of the Trinity is all about. It leads us to cherish our salvation even more, and to guard our faith by seeking to follow the Father more perfectly day by day. As the Holy Family belonged to each other, they also belonged to God.
God has taken this simple, sinful, struggling man and blessed him in ways he will only fully understand in heaven. I am in awe that God has chosen to bring salvation within the formation of marriage and family life. I know I am called to live out my relationship with my wife in a way that reveals Christ and his Church, always striving to bring out her beauty and to work with her to make our marriage a pure example of what it means to love as man and wife. I see in my relationship with my children, a mirror that dimly reflects the glory of my Father’s love for me. How can I not then live out my days as a faithful family man, leading our family along the narrow way with strength and joy?
Men, may you too seek to live as the Holy Family, as Christ and his Church, as the Trinity – in love, in faith, and in joy – always looking forward to the day when we will be united as a family in the Kingdom to come. As this new year unfolds, may you make your way along the path of salvation with your families, struggling to overcome sin, seeking those times of delight, and working to please God until Christ comes again.
