Category: family

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Holy Family, Our Family

Holy Family (A)

 

It is not easy to come up with a homily for the feast of the Holy Family! One challenge is that, as a Catholic priest, I do not have a wife or children of my own. Nevertheless, I grew up in a family and still have lots of relatives here and there.  Moreover, in my ministry over the years, I have encountered members of many families, and many kinds of families, and have heard many family-related stories.  Besides, I have the teaching of the Church on family life to draw from as a resource.  Being celibate, then, is not an insurmountable problem when it comes to preaching about this feast. Continue reading “Holy Family, Our Family”

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The Number One Answer

Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C) – Luke 12: 49-53

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.  – Ecclesiastes 3:1

You are undoubtedly familiar with the TV game show Family Feud. This popular show has been on the air almost continuously since 1976. In it, two families square off in an attempt to win the most money.  They do this by trying to guess the most popular responses to the questions the host asks.  The family member who comes up with the number one answer gives the family control of the round and a better chance to win.  The family that wins the game then has a chance to win more money in the Fast Money round.  The key to winning that round and the cash prize is to come up with as many number one answers as possible. Continue reading “The Number One Answer”

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Icon Of The Trinity

Holy Family (C)

This is a photo of my mother’s family, from the early 1940’s. My mother, the only one still alive, is in the front row, second from the left.

In celebrating this feast of the Holy Family, we might assume that the focus is on Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and how they lived out their family life. In one sense, of course, that is true. However, when we look at the Gospels, we find very few details about the Holy Family. Certainly not the kind of detail that we in our time would look for in trying to understand them. The Gospels give us very little biographical info. We aren’t given Joseph’s psychological background, or what Mary’s personality was like, or what the child Jesus liked to eat for breakfast. We aren’t given examples of how they dealt with some of the challenges of marriage and family life. We aren’t told anything about what Joseph or Mary’s expectations might have been when they became betrothed to one another.  Continue reading “Icon Of The Trinity”

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The Reconciling Family

Twenty-Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (B)

Since the first reading and the Gospel for this Sunday deal with marriage and family life, I have taken article that I recently wrote for the Harvest on Pope Francis’ teachings on family life and used it as the basis of this blog post.  No one will complain if I steal from myself!

In The Joy of Love, Pope Francis explores the richness of marriage and family life in Catholic teaching from a number of angles. Here, I am going to focus on the family as the place where we first learn reconciliation.  Continue reading “The Reconciling Family”