What faith requires: The Family of Jesus, Joseph, and Mary 2024

                                                          What faith requires:

The Family of Jesus, Joseph, and Mary 2024 

December 29, 2024

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1 Samuel 1:20-28; Psalm 84; 1 John 3:1-24 Luke 2:41-52

 

It is no surprise that the event of Jesus at the Temple occurs during Passover because this feast bookends his life’s work. His consciousness of ministry begins at the Temple during Passover, and his final moments are at the Temple during the feast of deliverance when he practices the obedience of faith. An important take-away from this passage is that Jesus needed to return to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary because from them, they would learn obedience, and the reason Jesus saves us is because of his obedience to faith. His family had to teach him about the discerning choices one makes in daily life and the sacrifices that families make to advance the common good of each person and of society. The Gospels do not tell us much about these intervening years because he is learning what sacrifice requires. The harder decisions are when one foregoes one’s own desires for the benefit of another in need.

 

Our families first and foremost teach us about unconditional love and the care and patience we have for one another. We learn to move away from selfishness to outward concern, and as we mature, we learn that this outward movement is the only satisfying way forward and it is the only God-like way. In today’s world, we see those who act out of selfish desires, and we know we must be patient with them. A Me-First or an I-deserve-respect attitude reveals a worldview that is not yet enlarged. A small world reveals a small faith. A small faith reveals a small world. Jesus had to learn from his family that concern for others is an essential condition of faith. 

 

Faith calls us to move outward and to expand our social and cultural awareness. It is important for us to be in situations where our hearts are stressed because we cannot adequately care for others. Faith never lets us be comfortable staying in a small world wishing for a better, easier, idealized society of our youth. We must dismantle those illusions we have about the way life should be so we can deal with reality – just as it is. This is authentic. This is looking at the hard realities of life and saying, “I must choose to participate in the solutions, rather than blaming and faulting other people. I must put my expanding love in action.”

 

For Catholics, we must see that we are in an essential moment of chance. The Pope just inaugurated a few days ago the Jubilee of Hope, and a key aspect of this jubilee is that we see ecumenism and Christian unity as a way forward. Catholics must transcend themselves if faith is to mean anything. It means that we see our Protestant siblings as brothers and sisters, and not someone other than us. We must see Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and Jews as siblings as well. We must see migrants, undocumented people, and someone from a different race as essentially equal in dignity as fellow pilgrims. This is the human, holy family of Jesus – and to us. Faith always calls upon us to expand our categories of care and hospitality. Faith transcends our human categorization and points towards the divine. It always propels us outward – through all our fears and vulnerabilities – until we are no longer fearful, finally more trusting. This is what obedience of faith requires of us today.  

 

Perhaps this week we might want to think about how our love, tolerance, and understanding needs to grow. We consider where and how we can be more loving. What does our obedience of faith requires us to do to expand our circle of care and consciousness? The world depends upon your answer.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading: 

Monday: (1 John 3) We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

 

 

Tuesday: (1 John 4) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us.

 

Wednesday: (1 John 4) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

 

Thursday: (1 John 4) If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 

 

Friday (1 John 5) Who is the victor of this world? The one who believes in Jesus, who came through water and Blood, and the Spirit testifies to him.   

 

Saturday (1 John 5) We have confidence that if we ask anything according to his will, God hears us.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 4) He went around all of Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness among the people.

 

Tuesday: (Mark 6) When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already very late.

 

Wednesday (Mark 6) After the five thousand had eaten and were satisfied, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray. 

 

Thursday (Luke 4) Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

 

Friday (Luke 5) It happened that there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where Jesus was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” 

 

Saturday (John 3) Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, where he spent some time with them baptizing. John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was an abundance of water there, and people came to be baptized, for John had not yet been imprisoned.

 

Saints of the Week

 

December 29: Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr (1118-1170), was the lord chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury in England during the time of King Henry II. When he disagreed with the King over the autonomy of the church and state, he was exiled to France. When he returned, he clashed again with the king who had him murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.  

 

December 29: The Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, was a feast instituted in 1921. It was originally the 3rd Sunday after Christmas. The Holy Family is often seen in Renaissance paintings - and many of those are of the flight into Egypt. 

 

December 31: Sylvester I, pope (d. 335), served the church shortly after Constantine issued his Edict of Milan in 313 that publicly recognized Christianity as the official religion of the empire and provided it freedom of worship. Large public churches were built by the emperor and other benefactors. Sylvester was alive during the Council of Nicaea but did not attend because of old age.

 

January 2: Basil the Great and Gregory Nanzianzen, bishops and doctors (fourth century), are two of the four great doctors of the Eastern Church. They are known for their preaching especially against the Arian heretics. Basil began as a hermit before he was named archbishop of Caesarea. He influenced Gregory who eventually became archbishop of Constantinople. Their teachings influenced both the Roman and Eastern Churches.

 

January 3: The Name of Jesus was given to the infant as the angel foretold. In the Mediterranean world, the naming of person stood for the whole person. Humans were given the power to name during the Genesis creation accounts. If one honors the name of the person, they honor the person. The name Jesus means “Yahweh saves.”

 

January 4: Elizabeth Ann Seton, religious (1774-1821), was born into an Episcopalian household where she married and had five children. When her husband died, she became a Catholic and founded a girls’ school in Baltimore. She then founded the Sisters of Charity and began the foundation for the parochial school system in the U.S. She is the first native-born American to be canonized.

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• December 29, 1886. Publication of the beatification decree of the English martyrs. 
• December 30, 1564. Letter from Pope Pius IV to Daniel, Archbishop of Mayence, deploring the malicious and scurrilous pamphlets published against the Society throughout Germany and desiring him to use his influence against the evil. 
• December 31, 1640. John Francis Regis died. He was a missionary to the towns and villages of the remote mountains of southern France. 
• January 1, 1598: Fr. Alphonsus Barréna, surnamed the Apostle of Peru, died. He was the first to carry the faith to the Guaranis and Chiquitos in Paraguay. 
• January 2, 1619: At Rome, John Berchmans and Bartholomew Penneman, his companion scholastic from Belgium, entered the Roman College. 
• January 3, 1816: Fr. General Brzozowski and 25 members of the Society, guarded by soldiers, left St. Petersburg, Russia, having been banished by the civil government. 
• January 4, 1619: The English mission is raised to the status of a province.