Father Rick Bolte's Homily

A: The Feast of the Holy Family                                     2007-12-30

When children come to me for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and, on that rare occasion when they confess fighting with a sibling (ha!), I talk with them about the difference between friends and family.  We often prefer friends to family because friends seem more fun to be with and to like us.  However, with friends, whenever they’re not fun or stop liking us, the friendship ends.  Family is different.  No matter how much we might argue and upset each other, we remain family.  No matter how angry our parents may get with us, we trust that they will not kick us out of the house without food and clothing.

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we trust that God will love us and forgive us no matter what.  We believe that this unconditional love is the kind of love God has for us and it’s the kind our parents try to teach us.  But to really know it, we can’t just receive it.  Too easily we take it for granted and even think we have earned it.  Only by trying to imitate it can we hope to understand it.  Only then do we realize it is never earned but always a gift.  The penance I often give children is to do something nice for the sibling they are having trouble getting along with.  And this is to be a prayer, asking that they can learn to love and God loves them.

This is what real families are about.  Sometimes we imagine that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph always got along and never had any troubles.  We have one story in Luke where Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem without telling his parents.  Realizing that Jesus had to learn the same as you and I, it is safe to presume there were many other episodes like this.  Mary and Joseph had to learn how to be parents and any (especially first time) parents can tell you, there’s no book that guarantees no mistakes.

Our families can not be like some imaginary, utopian family without problems.  Yet the Second Vatican Council called the family the building block of the church.  Not individuals, but relationships.  Not imaginary, ideal families but real families.  In real families, where it is not easy, we learn to love.  We learn to love not just those we like but even those we don’t.  This is what makes a family a family.  This love that reflects God’s love is the glue of families and makes them the building block of the church.

In real families we choose to love as a gift, not just when we deem the other to be worthy or of value to us.  This is what God’s love is all about.  This is what it means to be church and the reality of the kingdom of God.  Our world is never going to be filled with just people we like or even get along with.  We will never deem the people of the world worthy of our love.  But Jesus showed us how to give love as a gift even to the most unworthy.  That is our hope for salvation!To really experience the love of God, we too must love as a gift those we would otherwise deem unworthy.