Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family (A), Vigil

December 28, 2019

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.27.19_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday, as the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family.

* It’s highly significant that when the Son of God became man, when the Word became flesh, he chose to be conceived and born within a family of an already committed husband and wife. He didn’t choose to come as a 30-year-old adult, or a teenager, or an 80 year old. He didn’t choose to be born of a single mom, or raised by two men or two women, or some other arrangement. He chose to be born within a family … precisely in order to redeem the family. The family is always in need of redemption. We see with the first family of Adam and Eve how the devil succeeded in separating husband and wife from God and from each other, and we see the immediate consequences of the devil’s work in the next generation when Cain slew his brother Abel. Because the family is meant to be the world’s greatest image of God as a communion of persons in love, the devil never ceases to go after the family. We see how he did through Herod in this Sunday’s Gospel, terrorizing not only the Holy Family but all the families of ancient Bethlehem.

* And as surveys across the globe have shown, the devil has been rather effective in his attack on the family. Many think that marriage is simply a piece of paper and don’t even bother getting married any more. There’s the attempt to redefine marriage and make it a husband-less or wife-less institution. There’s the challenge in many parts of the world by polygamy, where men fail to make a commitment to one woman. There’s the struggle of so many single-parent families whether by accident or by abandonment but choice. There’s the widespread notion that marriage lasts for as long as two shall love, rather than for as long as they shall live, and the problems that come from the no-fault divorce culture. There’s the problem of the separation of families, like that is happening in the desperate situation at the border, but also happens voluntarily through the mobility of family members.

* We can spend many homilies focusing on the problems confronting the family today, but it’s more important to consider how to strengthen the family one by one. It’s a great blessing that we have the feast of the Holy Family, so that we can reflect together on the purpose of the family, what it means to be a husband and father, a wife and mother, a child and brother or sister. The family has a purpose in God’s plan; it’s meant to be a school of love, a domestic Church, a gift of God to help all of the members of the family grow into the realization of who God created each of them to be.

* In the Opening Prayer of Sunday’s Mass, we’ll pray, “O God, who were pleased to give us the shining example of the Holy Family, graciously grant that we may imitate them in practicing the virtues of family life and the bonds of charity.” All of us can learn so much from their virtues and love about how to make our families schools of love. Their family is called the “Holy Family” because holiness is the perfection of love. For a family to be a school of love, it needs to model itself on the loving choices and priorities we see in them.

* When we look at the Holy Family, we easily see several crucial elements about what made it holy: