Over the last couple of weeks, many of us have experienced much excitement through Christmas and New Years parties, gatherings, and other celebrations. Well, similarly, the Church has also experienced much excitement. This excitement came through the Feast of the Holy Family (Dec. 30), the Solemnity of Mary (Jan. 1), and the Epiphany of the Lord (Jan. 6). My post this week will attempt to look back over the last twelve days or so and make a connection to these different celebrations.
Love. Peace. Invitation. In my opinion, these three words summarize the three feasts mentioned above. The feast of the Holy Family is a wonderful celebration of love, the Solemnity of Mary is a celebration of what being at total peace with God looks like, and the Epiphany of the Lord is an invitation to the Three Wise Men to continue being the seekers of greater truth that they already were. If we look at these feasts with a bird's eye view, hopefully we can find ourselves in the midst of them as lovers, peacemakers, and seekers.
As a way to go deeper into love, peace, and invitation, I'd like to look deeper at the family unit. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are our model family in the Church. They represent the model family not necessarily because they consist of mom, dad, and child, but more so because of the love, honor, respect, sacrifice, and support embodied in their relationships. How many of us have friends, teachers, coaches, or other mentors that we are so close with that we consider them family? Or, how many of us have parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, or cousins that we are not as close with and have a hard time viewing them as family? Regardless of who is in our family, what matters most are the qualities found in good relationships as I mentioned above. Keep in mind, no family is perfect. A statement comes to mind that my mom says from time to time: "Families are the ties the bind and gag us." This statement is quite true. Family joins us tightly to one another in wonderful ways, but family is just as likely to make us sick, too.
Since we can get caught up talking about what the perfect family unit should look like (Lord knows this issue is politicized enough), here is a short list of simple TV shows and movies you might know and can relate to that focus on family relations in very different ways that came to mind: The Brady Bunch, 3 Men and a Baby, The Cosby Show, Full House, Family Matters, Home Improvement, Modern Family, Raising Hope, The New Normal, and Parental Guidance. While this list could certainly go on for pages and pages, the shows and movies listed here all do a good job showing just how diverse and flawed the family unit can be while still aiming to support the important values of love, honor, respect, sacrifice, and support. Take a minute to think back on some of your favorite books, shows, and movies. Do you find yourself thinking about the central characters and their relationships/conflicts with their families/enemies? If so, what kind of support systems surrounded these characters? I'd guess some characters had blood relatives around them while others had close friends, but either way, some support was probably there. You see, without relationships and support, we'll find it quite difficult to find true sources of joy in our lives. We know that with the joy of family also comes sorrow, but if we try to remove the sorrow from our lives by removing these relationships, then we may ultimately wind up removing the joy, too. Remember, though the ties of family may gag us, they also bind us together for the good of one another. We must learn to live within this painfully comforting embrace we call family.
To conclude, I'd like to refer to one more source of love, peace, and invitation that I experienced in the last twelve days or so. I had the privilege of seeing Les Miserables with my mom and dad recently. If you have not seen this movie, whether you are a fan of musicals or not, you need to go see it in light of the recent feasts I've mentioned here today. The story of the lead character, Jean Valjean, epitomizes what it means for all of us accept the invitation to seek truth and mercy, to both give and receive love, and to be at total peace with God in our lives. I pray that God will continue to bless you and your families whatever they may look like and that we will always embrace God's invitation to be love and peace to the world.
May we be ever-faithful, ever-joyful, and ever-mindful.
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