Feast of Holy Family - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2020

Had we read the Gospel scheduled for the last Mass on Christmas Day, we would have heard how St John wrote of the Mystery that is Jesus. He referred to him as the Word of God, in much the same way that Paul wrote of Jesus as the Christ — and both authors wrote of how the Word, how the Christ, had existed from the very beginning. John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God… Through him all things came to be”. Paul wrote, “… in [Christ] were created all things in heaven and on earth. Before anything was created, he existed.”

The Word, the Christ, was responsible for the first moment that the created universe exploded into being.

John wrote of the Word as God revealed. For Paul, Christ “…is the image of the unseen God” — or God revealed. And the Word, the Christ, revealed the Mystery of God "from the beginning” through the created things of the world.The world we live in speaks so eloquently of God.

The Hebrew Psalms, written well before Jesus, regularly spoke of how the created world reveals the beauty of God. Psalm 19 says precisely that, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God.”

Astronomers estimate that the universe has been around for just under fourteen billion years — proclaiming to those with eyes to see the glory of God. We only need eyes, and words, to proclaim that God ourselves.

But things did not stop there. Just two thousand years ago [hardly a blink of the eye in comparison], “the Word became flesh” in Jesus and as Jesus. As flesh, Jesus was made from the dust of exploded, burnt out stars, of which our flesh also is composed. God became visible in the flesh of the human Jesus, who revealed the face of God more perfectly than the universe ever could. And that is what we celebrated on Friday — Christmas Day.

But there is more. The human flesh of the crucified Jesus was raised from death by the power of the Father and, as the Scriptures proclaim so graphically, shares freely in the power of God. And because Jesus told us while living among us, we know that the power of God is precisely the power of love. Love, ultimately, is the only real power that gives life and, with us humans, the freedom to live it.

Today we are celebrating the Feast of Jesus’ Family — of Mary and Joseph and Jesus. Together, Mary and Joseph formed, nurtured and educated Jesus. As most parents do, they instilled their values into him, mirrored to him how people live together in community, gave him the security that flows from knowing what it is like to be loved, and did all the other things that parents do that they may not even realise, forgiving each other, saying sorry, deeply caring for each other.

And they did it simply by being as responsibly human as they could be.