God sets a father in honor
over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons. Whoever honors his father atones for sins, and
preserves himself from them. When he
prays, he is heard; he stores up riches who reveres his mother. Sirach 3:2-4
Blessed are all who fear the
LORD, and who walk in his ways. What
your hands provide you will enjoy; you will be blessed and prosper: Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within
your home, your children like young olive plants around your table. Just so will the man be blessed who fears the
LORD. Psalm 128 1-4
He went and dwelt in a town
called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be
fulfilled, He shall be called a
Nazorean. Matthew 2:23
Piety
Piety flows around those
things, places and people that are dear in our life. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are
family. They are the preeminent family because they are the meeting of the
human and the divine. Trinity as the
source of the Holy Family is the home of every family. In a very loose sense of
the word, Trinity is family. The three
persons of the Trinity are real persons. They are family as one God. The
mystery of their unity is not family. Their unity is in the equality they have
in the mystery of Goodness. God is beholden to no other. Family is the richness
of history that has its meaning in the ultimate sense of Family in God as the
creator of all of us. We would not know God as Trinity if God did not reveal
self to us. We honor God as Trinity when we allow the mystery of God to
continue. Family is not mystery. It is the mutual gift of mother and father
that bring a child into the world. Mary bringing Jesus into our world brought
us into the family of God.
Study
The breakup of many
families in our time is worth studying. Power, riches and glory can break up
family when any one of the trio becomes more important to a spouse than the
other spouse. How we commit ourselves to God in the Religious life has the same
problem The commandment is to love the
Lord our God with all our mind, heart, soul, strength, in short, with all of
ourselves. Intimacy with a spouse covers much more than sexuality and job. How
we give our lives for one another is accepting the truth that there might be
better people and jobs to tempt us, but family and spouse are the ultimate
cement of intimacy and
relationship. God is willing to
share all of himself with us in his Son.
Spouses learn to share all of themselves with each other. So a marriage will last. The goal is to be on
the journey to ultimate togetherness which will be found in Christ, hopefully
during life but definitely in heaven. The Son in order to belong to all of us
had to give his life for all of us. We study how to belong to God realizing
that the father gives us his Son to be one of us. The Son loves us to the
extent that he gives his life for all people and leaves us free to accept his
gift by the way we live our lives in his name.
Action
Paul gives children the
challenge to honor their fathers.
Mothers possess the same authority over their children. How we relate to
our parents passes over to our children in how they will honor us. In
everything we do, we must try to honor the way Christ loved his human parents
and how he loved us. We will be blessed
in how we honor our parents. Family life is a God relationship that gives
meaning to how we honor God. Joseph and
Mary, doing what is best for Christ in fleeing to Egypt, offer parents the
challenge to bring up their children up in the safety of family love.
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