MAY FAMILIES BE THE LIVING IMAGE OF GOD'S LOVE

VATICAN CITY, DEC 31, 2006 (VIS) - Today, the Feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth, before praying the Angelus with thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square, the Pope sent his greetings to all the families of the world, expressing the hope that they may enjoy "the peace and love that Christ gave us, coming among us at Christmas."

"God," he said, "wished to be born and to grow in a human family. Thus he consecrated [the family] as the basic and ordinary way of His meeting with humanity. In the life spent in Nazareth, Jesus honored the Virgin Mary and the good Joseph, remaining under their authority for the entire period of His infancy and adolescence. In this way, He highlighted the fundamental value of the family in the education of the person."

The Pope emphasized how Mary and Joseph introduced Jesus into the religious community. "With them he learned to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When He was twelve years old, He stayed behind in the Temple and his parents took three days to find Him." Through that gesture, Jesus "brought them to understand that He had to concern Himself with the things of His Father's House."

"This evangelical episode reveals the most authentic and profound vocation of the family: that of accompanying all its members on the journey to the discovery of God and of the design He has laid down for them. Mary and Joseph educated Jesus ... through their own example. From them He learned that in the first place it is necessary to do God's will, and that the spiritual bond is greater than the tie of blood.

"The Holy Family of Nazareth," Benedict XVI added, "is truly the 'prototype' for all Christian families who, united in the Sacrament of Marriage and nourished by the Word and the Eucharist, are called to put into practice that stupendous vocation and mission of being a living cell, not only of society but also of the Church, sign and instrument of unity for the entire human race."

The Pope concluded his remarks by invoking the protection of Mary and St. Joseph "for all families, especially those in difficulties. Support them so they may resist the divisive forces of a certain kind of modern culture that undermines the very foundations of the family institution. Help Christian families all over the world to be the living image of God's love."

Following the Angelus, the Holy Father addressed the faithful in various languages. To Polish pilgrims he said: "Let us give thanks to God for the past year, for all the good received, and particularly for my pilgrimage to Poland. I recall my journey in the footsteps of Servant of God John Paul II and your witness of faith. Today, on the Sunday of the Holy Family, I pray that your families be worthy places for the education of children and young people."

(Source: Vatican Information Service)

"Bloom Where You're Planted (I)

Feast of the Holy Family

December 31, 2006

Today’s Gospel of Luke ends with the words: “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.” (Luke 2:52) In short, Jesus grew and matured within the context of a human family. He bloomed in the soil of the family that Mary and Joseph provided. This is the will of God for us as well. We are all called to reach our full human potential. God wants us to become what he has called us to be. He wants us to bloom, “to advance in wisdom, and age and favor before God and man.”

“Bloom where you’re planted!”

Granted our respective families probably don’t come close to the holiness and healthiness of the family that Mary and Joseph provided for Jesus, but as we approach a new year and are thinking perhaps about resolutions, we might consider enriching the soil of our families with the ultimate nutrient.... “LOVE.”.

Perhaps one of the following reflections might hit home with you as you resolve to enrich your family for the new year.

FIRST REFLECTION: “Family Comes Before Things!”

Your spouse and your children come before your job, before your career.

In 1993, David Williams, an offensive lineman for the Houston Oilers was fined a game’s pay of over $80,000 (not bad work if you can get it), because he opted to stay home with his wife who was having a baby instead of flying to New England with the Oilers to play against the Patriots. Smart man! He understood that family is more important than money, more important than football.

In December 1996, an elderly man playing with his grandchild outside of Church told me he had discovered the joy of being with his grandchildren and had only one regret in life, that he had missed the same opportunity to enjoy his own children growing up because he was a workaholic.

Moms and Dads, you’re going to die some day, but then you knew that! Your kids and grandkids are going to talk about you at the funeral parlor. They’re going to waltz down memory lane. They’re going to tell funny stories about the water fight you had while washing the family car, the time you played tag and fell and landed on your backside, the time you flew the kite at the beach and it got away from you, the time you attended their first grade play and congratulated them even though they got their one line wrong. They’re going to remember the times you laughed together, cried together and all the fun adventures you took together.

However, what they’re not going to remember is whether you dressed them in Kalvin Kline or K-mart blue light specials. They’re not going to remember whether you fed them steak or hamburger, or any other of the materials things you worked so hard to provide. They’re only going to remember the times you spent with them.

“Family comes before things.”

For you young people, this means your family comes before school or sports or other extracurricular activities.

On Christmas day 1980 I was temporarily helping out at Sacred Heart Parish in Homestead Florida. I was just a deacon at the time. One of the altar servers at Christmas Mass, a senior in high school, casually mentioned that he had baseball practice that afternoon. I was taken aback. Surely he must be mistaken. What kind of a coach would require high school kids to practice baseball on one of the most important family days of the year.

The young man explained that last year his team had been second in the state and that this year they were determined to be number one. So they practiced every day without exception, including Christmas Day.

I’m ashamed to say that this young man attended a Catholic high school. How is it possible that a Catholic school, a coach, a family could not understand that family comes before things, that family comes even before first place trophies.

Life isn’t about things. Life isn’t about trophies....or scholarships, or making lots of money. Life is about relationships. People make us happy...not things.

So remember: “Family comes before things!”

"Bloom Where You're Planted (II)

Feast of the Holy Family

December 31, 2006

SECOND REFLECTION: “Love means sharing yourself and your time”

On December 30, 1980, Irwin Westheimer died at the age of 101. He’s claim to fame was that he was the founder of the “Big Brother Program”. Irwin Westheimer challenged men to mentor young boys who needed a male role model in their lives. The purpose of Big Brothers is not for adults to give expensive gifts to kids, but to give themselves, to share their time.

Christmas is a time we give gifts to others as a sign of our love for them. Unfortunately, many adults give gifts, really expensive gifts, not as a sign of love, but as a way of making up for their failure love, or more precisely for their failure to share themselves and their time with their family members. Real love isn’t measured by the expense of the gift, but by our willingness to give of ourselves and of our time to another.

Nursing homes in our area provide their elderly residents with the best care that money can buy, but they can’t provide the one thing the elderly really want, which is for their children and grandchildren to spend some time with them.

When young couples comes in for their marriage prep, I tell them that during the course of the next six months we’re going to discuss many important things with them about marriage and family. However, the most important thing we’re going to tell you is this.... it’s a formula for a successful marriage, so pay close attention; write it down:

“Time + Positive Interaction = Relationship”

Every relationship is in flux. Either you are drifting apart or coming closer together. What causes this ebb and flow in a relationship? Time and Positive Interaction. You spend time with someone interacting in a positive one you get closer. You stop spending time with a person you drift apart. Do you feel a strain in your marriage? Take your spouse out for date, spend some time together and do something fun. Are you feeling distant from your teens? Invite him or her out for a lunch date. Spend some time together and do something fun!

Remember: “Time + positive interaction = relationship. This formula is a law of nature. You break the law at your own peril.

“Love means sharing yourself and your time!”

"Bloom Where You're Planted (III)

Feast of the Holy Family

December 31, 2006

THIRD REFLECTION: “Touch is the bond of love.”

The ability to love is not innate, but must be learned. Just as we learn to ride a bike we have to learn to love. And we learn to love through the experience of being loved! We learn to love through the experience of being touched in positive ways.

If you want your children to grow up to be loving people, then lavish them with love, lavish them with positive touch.

I remember visiting my Aunt Carol many years ago. I forget the occasion but the whole family was home. Aunt Carol had six kids: five teenagers and a two year old whose name was Nicole. Little Nicole was going from sibling to sibling being tickled by this one, cuddled by that one, etc. She was having a great time and I thing Aunt Carol enjoyed little Nicole annoying and exhausting all her siblings.

I casually remarked that little Nicole was going to be a spoiled child. Big mistake! Aunt Carol gave me one of those looks, you know the kind I’m talking about and then said: “You can spoil a child with things, but YOU CAN’T SPOIL A CHILD WITH LOVE!” And of course Aunt Carol was right. You can’t spoil a child with love.

We call ourselves “rational animals.” We pride ourselves in being superior to the other creatures because we have the capacity to reason, to think. We sometimes forget, however, that despite all our brain power, we’re still animals. And in the animal kingdom “touch is the bond of love.” Touch is one of our basic animal needs.

I remember watching a calf being born while I was out in South Dakota. The mother cow licked that calf up and down, back to front over and over again. Only then did she allow the calf to nurse. Every dog and cat does the same thing. It’s in the licking, in the touching that the parental bond is established.

No doubt you parents remember holding your baby for the first time. You unwrapped him or her and counted all the fingers and toes and made sure everything was as it should be. You gently touched your baby back to front, up one side and down the other. Why? Because instinctively you knew that “touch is the bond of love.”

You’ve seen the bumper sticker: “Have you hugged your child today?”

A few years ago the following appeared in an Ann Landers column:

“A few weeks ago I kissed my son for the first time and told him I loved him. Unfortunately, he didn’t know it because he was dead. He had shot himself... The greatest regret of my life is that I kept my son at arm’s length. I believed it was unmanly for males to show affection for one another... I will never recover from my ignorance and stupidity.”

What is true of fathers and sons, is also true of fathers and daughters, mothers and daughters and mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, etc.

Can you imagine Jesus, who wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, never embracing his mother Mary and saying: “Mom, I love you”? Or can you imagine Jesus, who told how the father and son embraced in the parable of the Prodigal Son, never hugging Joseph and saying: “Dad, I love you”?

Have you hugged you child today? Have you hugged you mom today? Or called her? Have you hugged your dad today?

Love is a learned behavior. We learn to love through the tangible experience of being loved, of being touched in a positive way.

“Touch is the bond of love!”

"Bloom Where You're Planted (IV)

Feast of the Holy Family

December 31, 2006

FOURTH REFLECTION: “Love is the choice to forgive.”

From the cross the crucified Christ cries out: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” These words represent a conscious deliberate choice that Jesus made to forgive his murderers, to forgive sinners! What an awesome love God has for us. Jesus himself tells his disciples that “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” And if dying for another is the greatest act of love, then certainly “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” is a close second.

Over my twenty five years as a priest I have witnessed many times over the healing power of forgiveness. I have seen husbands and wives forgive adulterous spouses. It wasn’t easy and was always preceded by weeks and even months of bitter arguing and weeping on both sides. But when the abused spouse could see clear to forgive, then healing and renewal and love came back into their lives and into the lives of their children.

I’ve seen the alienation of parents and children, and sibling from sibling healed by forgiveness. What an awesome we wield when we choose to forgive.

I’ve also seen the opposite. I’ve seen long term marriages end abruptly because the abused spouse just couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive the other. I’ve seen how the anger, bitterness and meanness eat at them and poison all their relationships.

It is in forgiving us that Jesus proves his love.

“Love is the choice to forgive.”

"Bloom Where You're Planted" (Part V)

Feast of the Holy Family

December 31, 2006

FIFTH REFLECTION: “Love is the choice to accept people as they are.”

To accept people as they are is to love like God, who loves us in spite of our sins and weaknesses. God’s love for us has no conditions. God doesn’t say I’ll love you if you do such and such. Or I’ll die for you if you do this or that. God simply loves us. He invites us to change, to become like him, but he still loves us even when we fall or fail to live up to our full potential. God’s love for us is simply unconditional.

Does your spouse, your children, your parents have to earn your love? What subtle and perhaps not so subtle messages are you giving them? Perhaps, I’ll love you if you stop smoking, or if you stop drinking, or if you lose weight. I’ll love you if you get good grades, excel at sports or make more money.

In the late seventies a movie titled “Tribute”, starring Jack Lemmon and Bobby Benson, taught a very important lesson about acceptance. The movie was about a father (Jack Lemmon) dieing of cancer. He hasn’t been in contact with his son (Bobby Benson) for years because of a divorce. Before he dies the father wants to reconnect with his son, so he invites the young man, now in his early twenties, to his California beach house.

The son doesn’t know about his father’s cancer. The father doesn’t want sympathy but a genuine relationship. Things don’t seem to be going well between father and son. They are constantly arguing and finding fault.

Growing up without his father, the son had an idealized image of what his father was like, and Jack Lemmon doesn’t quite measure up. Likewise, having been separated from his son since the boy’s early childhood, the father has an idealized notion of his son, which the son can’t live up to.

In a particularly stirring moment in the movie, Jack Lemmon grabs Benson by his shirt collar and exclaims: “I may not be the father you always wanted, but did it ever occur to you that you’re not the son I always wanted?” [Translation: Son you don’t love me and I don’t love you because we haven’t yet accepted each other as we are.] Now that’s powerful drama!

It’s only when the son begins to accept his dad as he is and not as he would want him to be.... when he realizes that his father is just a guy; not superman or some other noble hero, that he can begin to love. Likewise, it’s only when the father accept his son as he is and not as he would want him to be, that he can begin to love.

The feelings of attraction that we have for idealized figures is called infatuation or romanticization. Real love is about accepting people warts and all as they are, and not how we think they should be.

Our guest speaker last October for Respect Life Sunday, whose name escapes right now, told us the story of a New Jersey dad of seven. The last child, a girl, was born with Down Syndrome. In the eyes of the world she was less than perfect, but none the less, her dad loved her and when that she was old enough to sit on his shoulders her dad walked up and down the street where he lived knocking on every door and introducing his daughter “Meagan” to all his neighbors. Now’s that’s a dad who understood that “love means accepting people as they are.”

Where’s the Kleenex when you need it?

"Bloom Where You're Planted (VI)

Feast of the Holy Family

December 31, 2006

SIXTH REFLECTION: “Love is the choice to do good for another.”

Hollywood tells us that love is all about feelings, but real love is more an activity of the will than an emotion. Granted, feelings of affection can make the daily choices of doing good for another easier, but the feelings themselves are not love. Love is always the choice to do good for another.

To illustrate this point to younger couples getting married, I always tell them as part of my wedding homily that God willing in a year or two, they will awaken at two in the morning to the sound of a baby crying.” The first couple of nights they’re going to think this is cute, especially if its baby number one. But after a few nights of sleep deprivation they won’t think it so cute getting up in the wee hours to care for a crying baby. They won’t feel very affectionate at 2:00 a.m., but none the less, they’ll get up, change a dirty diaper, feed the baby and even rock that little guy for hours before he or she finally dozes off again. That choice to do good for their child is love.

When I was a young teenager, one of my best friend’s mom was a bit of a nut case. (Trust me, I’m being kind here.) She physically and verbally abused my friend repeatedly, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say constantly. Even after all these years I can still vividly recall the following....

My friend’s mom was once again trying to beat him, but this time he held her off with a kitchen knife. He was waving the knife back and forth, feigning a jab here and a jab there as he mom tried to get to him. The adrenaline was flowing and my friend was hyper to the max. Suddenly he gasped and fainted. His mom pounced on him and began to pound on his chest with her fist as she cried “I love you. I love you.” And all I could think was “Thank God she doesn’t love me.”

My friends, love doesn’t hurt the beloved. If you are physically, emotionally, sexually, or verbally abusing family members or others, stop it now! Do not delude yourself, abusive behavior is not love.

Love is the choice to do good!

So make those new year resolutions. Resolve to enrich the soil of your family this year with love. It is God’s will that every member of your family should bloom and reach his or her full human potential. Remember:

1. Family Comes Before Things
2. Love means sharing yourself and your time
3. Touch is the Bond of Love. Love is not innate. It is learned through the experience of being loved.
4. Love is the choice to forgive.
5. Love is the choice to accept others as they are.
6. Love is the choice to do good for another.

St. John: “Let us love in deeds....and not merely talk about it.”