This morning, our heavenly Father bestows to us the gift of the Holy Family: the fact that Jesus came, not as an isolated being, but as one born into the ordinariness and even messiness of the human family.
If there has been a word that has received much reflection during these days of pandemic, it has been “family.” Over the past months, we have experienced the good and the bad. On the one hand, we have had our kids and our spouses home more often and we have rediscovered the beauty of home again. On the other hand, we have also experienced the sadness of not being with family—like at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And some have even had “too much” of family, feeling “cooped up” or “trapped.” So are saying “get me out of here!”
Perhaps this Feast Day of the Holy Family happens at an opportune moment as we reach, what we hope is, a turning point in these days.
Many years ago, in 1917, Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three shepherd children. In these miraculous, popular, and approved apparitions, Mary, as you remember, called the world to repentance and prayer—especially the Rosary. (The “O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell” prayer at the end of every decade of the Rosary comes from these apparitions).
Mary also told a most important prophecy: that Satan would wage his fiercest attacks in the years ahead—attacks specifically meant to destroy the family. The Family, Mary foretold, would be under severe attack.
Now, I will leave you to judge whether Mary’s prophecy has come true.
In order to judge the validity of her prophecy, let’s take a very brief tour of the past one-hundred years and the family.
Since Fatima, we have seen several generations affected by war: World War I, and II, and Korea, and the Cold War, and Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf War, and Afghanistan, and a hundred other conflicts in-between. And in each battle, many—literally, millions—of men and women died in battle. Many children lost a parent in these wars. Additionally, those men and women who did return home would return home, in many cases, broken: with PTSD or alcoholism or other trauma that would impact their spouses and their children and their home life.
Since Fatima, we have seen a dramatic rise in contraceptive use and in sterilization which (and this is factual, social science speaking here)—these have opened the door to loss of communication between spouses, feelings of being used, infidelity, the sex-slave trade (most grievously in the East where certain governments’ one-child rule has been devastating and in the West where pornography has run without any scruple).
It’s almost embarrassing to have to note the dramatic rise of divorce and so-called “no fault” divorce in these years and how “broken families” and “one-parent families” are much more the norm. We have a couple generations of children who have grown up without a parent.
Concurrent with this, we had Catholic Schools (and perhaps they did too good of a job in the early 20th century) where parents relied almost exclusively on the school to teach the faith and the prayers and the scriptures and to give the kids the Sacraments. As a result, religion became something that you simply did at school—pray at school, go to Mass at school—but something that ended or wasn’t exactly present or lived at home. I mean, how many parents not only take their children to Sunday Mass—but how many parents bring their children to the Sacrament of Mercy which is Confession? Perhaps this is how the faith became so compartmentalized in the 1980s.
Also during the 1980s, there was a flatting of the faith into a simple mantra of “Jesus loves you” but with little explanation about who He is, about what He demands, and about what He does in the Sacraments. Indeed, the Sacraments became what we do—like Confirmation: I confirm my faith—instead of what God is doing. The result was that when couples came to be married in the Catholic Church (which is a rarer event these days), they would came because they loved each other, yes, but when pressed about why, specifically, they wanted to get married in the Catholic Church, they could not find any reason but it was a family tradition or it “wouldn’t feel right” or it’s “just something that you do.” I have rarely heard a couple say, “We believe that God miraculously forges us into an unbreakable union here” or, more simply, “We need the Sacrament.”
It is no surprise to me, given the lack of an approach of intellectual rigor and integration, that when many of our Catholic students go off to college and are faced with the winds of secularism, doubt, and sophisticated intellectual arguments against the faith, the house of their faith—a house built on sand, really—so easily collapses.
And, given the state of family and fatherhood and motherhood and marriages, when those arguments concern the definition of marriage, masculinity, femininity, and so on, it is no surprise to me that confusion emerges along with frustration for what seem to be antiquated social constructs.
Was Mary’s prophecy true? …
Please know that I do not intend to make you feel condemned in any way if any of these relate to your story. Jesus, after all, came not to the clean places of humanity—He came with His Mercy into the mess.
And the things that I have told you this morning—they aren’t just simply theories to me. I have related to you my own story. So much what I have told you about this morning actually happened to me: I come from a family who lived through the wars, where alcoholism and its dysfunction and unhealthiness ran rampant; I grew up not knowing my faith, where religion was mere routine and not relational nor reasonable; my parents divorced and there was the trauma that surrounded it.
You may wonder how Father Gerber became Father Gerber. Quite simply: my mom gave me and my siblings and the family to the care of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
This was The Pivotal moment in the Gerber family. When crisis hit, my mom started to pray—really pray. She opened up the Scriptures (which had been just decoration at our house). She went on a retreat with the women’s group at church. It was the rubber-meets-the-road moment where faith either grows or dies.
I cannot emphasize this enough. Her “yes” was the pivotal moment when us kids started to change. Mom had said to Mary: “Mary, these are your kids. Be the mother that I cannot be for them.” And she turned to St. Joseph—“And you be the father that my husband cannot be for them.”
This act of entrusting her family to The Holy Family began a slow, but real transformation in our family. And while it did not save her marriage, it put us kids on the road to healing, to healing and counseling, to a rediscovery of our faith, to practicing the faith again, and to reconciliation among family members.
I am convinced that when mom placed Jesus into our family, our family’s direction was forever changed. We started to realize the reason for our family, its meaning, its essence—we had a source of mercy and charity and joy. We had a stable ground and a meaningful direction again. Our dignity as a family began to be realized.
I tell you all of this because, so often, people think that us priests just descended from Mars or are robots or aloof to the great, great difficulties that you experience in your family life. And I just want to let you know that we are with you—the Church is with you—and we believe in you and support you!
During the Year of the Family, Pope Saint John Paul II wrote a famous Letter to Families. He wrote in his typical, mystical style, but his point was clear: and that is that Jesus came to heal our families and help us see the great dignity of the family—precisely by having entered into family.
The Pope noted that we often do not see the dignity of the family nor the high bar of its mission precisely because the bar has been lowered so drastically over the years.
If you would indulge me for just a few more minutes—I think this is so important, brothers and sisters!—I want to tell you how important you are and how high your dignity really is.
First, John Paul II said in his letter that you are “The first school of humanity.”
If we think civilization has lost its humanity and needs humanizing, see in your family a great mission. In the family home, great virtues and habits can be learned. A healthy mentality can be developed. How important it is for a child, when it skins its knee when it is young or when it does something stupid as a teen (and we all did!)—how important it is for the child to find in his or her parents a listening ear. Not simply an ear that echoes the anger or the sadness—“just listen to me mom, dad”—but a heart that embraces and says, “I am with you” and “we’ll get through this together.” When a hurt child is embraced and listened to, not only is the skinned knee healed, but the heart is strengthened and given a greater confidence—a confidence that is so needed: namely: the be able, when we become adults, to look up at the heavenly Father, and, when we are in pain, to believe that He will come to our aid and embrace us. Oh to have such confidence in the heavenly father! This starts at home!
John Paul also said that you are the “First school of prayer.” We often pray with our children at bedtime when they are little and sometimes over meals. But that can so easily disappear! They learn that prayer is “just for little kids.” Or, in more devout families, attempts are made at saying the family Rosary, but impatience fills the air when kids run around the room. Parents: say the Rosary anyway and let the kids run around the room. Have an open spirit in your home that allows playtime to exist with prayer—who equates play and prayer? We should! Because then we would develop a sense at how close prayer and joy are! So, pray the Rosary—and your perseverance will slowly bring those satellites into your orbit.
Most of all, spouses should pray together. Not simply with the kids or for the kids—open your hearts to God with each other. This is one of the most intimate acts you can offer to your spouse, and your spouse to you. To become true soul-mates!
Other titles that the Holy Father gave to your family: He said you are the “first and principle teachers of the faith”—not the Catholic School. And you, not the parish, are “the domestic church.”
In sum, Pope John Paul II said that you are “the fundamental building block of civilization.” Which means that, how your marriage goes, so goes the family. And how your family goes, so goes the community. And how the community goes, goes the culture and the country and our civilization—and, really, our church. For you are the “domestic church” and the “fundamental building block of civilization.”
What a high dignity you have! And such an impressive mission!
And, in all of this, you are not by yourself. You don’t have to do this alone. You can’t do it alone or on your own strength.
You needed and still need the Sacrament of Marriage—call upon those graces!
And entrust your family to the care of Jesus, Mary, Joseph.
Pope Francis has, in a most special way, called for this next year to be a Year of Saint Joseph. This is so providential, for it was Saint Joseph that protected the Holy Family.
Indeed, I believe that—far from being an aloof or silent father—he was a good and strong man; a man that cherished Mary; a man who had earned her trust; a man that was open to God’s will; a man that did good work at his job and who had Jesus at the center of it; a man who protected his family and who said Yes to his family and his marriage precisely by saying Yes to Jesus as the focus and meaning of his family.
Joseph helps us to rediscover the Love Story that was and still is at the heart of every marriage and family. And I believe that, as Pope Francis lifts Joseph up for our consideration this year, perhaps we can be like my mom who gave her kids to Mary and to Joseph.
Joseph, be the husband and father I so struggle to be! Joseph, I entrust you with my family. Saint Joseph, help us to be open to Jesus in my family. So that we may grow not only in holiness, but also in healthiness, and in our humanity, and in our prayer, and in Jesus’ joy and peace and mercy!
I pray this for you. And I ask you to join me in praying this for you and for all of our families. We know that many of them are not here, that they are struggling. And they need someone to lift them up to Jesus, too. So we do that now.
Holy Family, we give you our family. Be our healing and our
health and our peace! Amen!
