In the warm glow of Christmas, we gather to celebrate the feast of the
Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. On Christmas Day, the focus was on
Jesus, the Word become flesh, the babe of Bethlehem lying in the manger,
visited by lowly shepherds who themselves were visited by angels. Today,
the focus shifts to Mary and Joseph, whose joy at the birth of their son
was rudely interrupted when they had to flee for their lives to a
foreign land in order to escape the treachery of the jealous and
murderous King Herod.
The story of the Holy Family
will surely ring true for us if we but stop to think. Not often in life
do moments of pure joy last for long. Too often, painful and
unanticipated realities arise that all-too-quickly bring us back to
earth. We all have experienced that. And we are in good company. The
best. We’re in the company of the Holy Family.
The gospel account of the
Flight into Egypt is spare, leaving much to the imagination. But it’s
not difficult to fill in the blanks. To be told that the highest
authority in the land, the king, is searching for your child in order to
destroy him and that you needed to run for your lives – and his – must
have been a harrowing experience. And so must have been the journey into
a foreign land where everything was strange and new – language, customs,
living conditions, culture. And then there was the uncertainty about how
long this exile was going to last. The message Joseph had received from
the angel was very open-ended: He was simply told to “stay there until I
tell you otherwise.”
None of this even remotely suggests
the romantic representations of the Flight into Egypt we see on
Christmas cards! But in this story, with all its fear and uncertainty,
we have the perfect model for what walking by faith is all about.
Walking by faith. That’s our
life, isn’t it! And it’s often in the dark and seldom easy - but imagine
what it would be like if we had to do it all alone. Mary and Joseph had
each other, and they had their deep awareness of God and God’s presence
in the lives of the Chosen People down through the ages, and in their
own lives, too - for in their newborn son, God had reached into their
lives in a wondrous, never-to-be-repeated way. They were not alone! And,
my friends, neither are we. As we journey in faith, celebrating life’s
joys and dealing with its challenges, we have communities of faith like
this one walking alongside us, and we are surrounded by the Communion of
Saints – they are never far from us, they point the way for us and cheer
us on. Alone we are not!
Today we celebrate this
blessed reality in a special way as we enter into the Church’s Jubilee
Year, 2025. We do so in company with the Church throughout the world:
with Pope Francis whose opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica
on Christmas Eve signaled the beginning of a Holy Year, a year of
jubilee, a year of grace. We enter the Jubilee alongside fellow
believers on every continent and in every country, in tiny villages and
great cities, in simple churches and splendid cathedrals – an endless
procession of pilgrims. With all of these pilgrims, we have something in
common. We share our faith in the God who became one of us in Jesus our
brother and savior, the God who loves us beyond measure and who lives
within us. We share our faith and, yes, our hope – our unwavering hope
that this journey we are on together is not only transforming us but,
through us, transforming our world and leading us to the Kingdom!
The motto Pope Francis has chosen
for this Year of Jubilee is Pilgrims of Hope.” In proclaiming it, the
Holy Father expressed his hope that the year would help us recover (and
here I quote), “a sense of universal fraternity, and refuse to turn a
blind eye to the tragedy of rampant poverty that prevents millions of
men, women, young people, and children from living in a manner worthy of
their human dignity.” And then, Pope Francis directs our attention to
the millions upon millions of migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers in
our world, who, like the Holy Family, are sometimes treated as despised
outsiders, or even invaders. Throughout too much of the developed world,
to our shame, borders and doors are steadily closing as leaders and
politicians look for ways to exclude and even to eradicate those who,
like the Holy Family, have been forced by circumstances beyond their
control to flee their beloved homeland and seek refuge in a foreign
land.
The Jubilee Year challenges
us to something very different. A Jubilee Year is a time for release,
restoration, freedom, and forgiveness! In this Jubilee we are being
called to rediscover the hope that does not disappoint—our hope in
Christ. Not only that, we are being called to be signs of hope to those
most in need. To quote Pope Francis again, “May the Christian community
always be prepared to defend the rights of those who are most
vulnerable, opening wide its doors to welcome them, lest anyone ever be
robbed of the hope of a better future.”
My friends in Christ, we
embark today on a pilgrimage of hope. During the year ahead, let us
remember who our fellow pilgrims on this pilgrimage are: the Holy Family
of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus; our fellow believers in the Church; and all
the poor and the needy, the lonely, the marginalized, and the abandoned;
the migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who look to us for support
and welcome.
Now we go to the altar to celebrate
the Eucharist. Never are we more united as a family, and never are we
more challenged to be – not just a family, but a caring family, a
compassionate family, a welcoming family, a holy family!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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