“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  With these words from the letter of St. John to the Church we are reminded of our true family life.  We are God’s children.  We belong to a great family that is the Church.  Like all children we do not know yet what we shall be in the future but it will one day be revealed to us.  What we do know is that we will be like God who showed us his human face in Jesus.  All of us are called to be like Jesus the Christ in our adult lives.  We are called to seek out God’s will for our lives and to live in obedience to that will.  When we reach our full maturity in the Christian life we are meant to see Jesus “as he is” and not in some false image that has been distorted by our human pride and arrogance.  He is not “my personal Jesus, created in my own image”, rather he is the source of salvation for all people in the world.  In order to understand Jesus “as he is” we must search and listen to the Word of God that is contained in scripture and we must encounter Jesus in truth through the Church, in its liturgy and in its teachings.  The family of the Church which gathers together in the Father’s house helps to form us in the image of Christ Jesus and to teach us how to be authentic human persons.  Every child in a family is unique and has their own gifts to offer the world and so it is in the family of the Church.  The mission of the Church is not to form a bunch of people who are all exactly alike and who fit into a common mold.  The mission of the Church is to be a family of God who allows each person in freedom and in love to become who God created them to be and to use their unique gifts for the service of God and all of humanity.

    We celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Jesus came into the world and was born into a human family where he was nurtured, grew and learned wisdom from his parents.  In the human family he learned how love is incarnated each day in family living, in the mutual respect that members of a family show to one another.  The human family is a sacred space in which we first encounter God and learn who we are, what our gifts are and what we are called to do with our lives.  It is in the family that Jesus grew before “God and man” and it is in every human family that we are called to learn how to live both “in God” and “in the world”.  Jesus today speaks to Mary and Joseph of how he has come to recognize that he “must be in my Father’s house”.  The house that Jesus speaks of is the Temple but also represents the “house of David” or the messianic mission that has been entrusted to him.  In our human family we learn through love and through our own human process of growth what it is that we “must” do in our lives.  The “must” that we see written in our hearts is not something that is thrust upon us from someone outside of ourselves but rather something that we discover from within us when we come to know and discover who we truly are.  When we come to know ourselves and the gifts that we have been given then we come to discover what we “must” be and do with our lives.

    In our gospel we see how the adolescent Jesus has come to discover his unique mission in God the Father and in the world that he has come to know.  Jesus assumes that Mary and Joseph would recognize this because it is they who have helped him to discover it through the life of love that they have lived in the family.  Mary chronicles these things in her heart for her mission will be to always be by Jesus’ side to support him in his mission as the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of humankind. It will always be her mission to point others to her son Jesus and to help them to understand the unique gifts and role that he has for all people.

    As Jesus comes to know himself as the Son of God and to have a mission that he “must” accomplish in the Father’s will, through his living the scriptures and worshipping in Church, so do all children come to know themselves as the children of God, who are loved by the Father and who have a unique mission to accomplish.  All of us, like Jesus, must dwell in the Father’s house as well as in our own homes.  We are raised most perfectly in both our family homes and in the family home of the Church.  Each “home” complements the other and extends our human and divine growth and understanding.

  May God bless all of our family homes on this beautiful feast of the Holy Family and help all mothers and fathers to understand that their children “must” live in both the family home and the home of the Church and that their children have a mission that they “must” accomplish in their lives.