The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti

Feast of the Holy Family

December 31, 2000

"Holy Family!"

It was a fine fall afternoon. Th leaves were all on the ground; it was a brisk and sunny day, good sweater weather. I committed myself that day to that delightful task of raking and bagging leaves for the town to pick up. I looked forward to this enterprise every fall with the anticipation that one would feel waiting to have one’s toenails ripped out. Needless to say I was hard put to be positive. Then I began to hear two of my children engaged in a loud dispute about whose turn it was to ride the bike that day. I dropped the rake and ran to the back of the house to ascertain the situation. When I rounded the corner there were two of my children, one on the bike, the other tenaciously gripping the handlebars of the bike. This is what it sounded like:

"It’s my turn to use the bike."

"Oh no! it isn’t, I was supposed to have the bike today because I didn’t use it yesterday."

"Nuh uh! I’m telling mom."

The feeling of anger was welling up inside of me. As Bill Cosby reminds us, parents aren’t interested in justice, just peace—and I was no different at that moment. I was already rehearsing in my mind what I would say and do—"Alright both of you in house, put the bike away and go to your rooms! But then I stopped and told them.

"Okay, you both have 0ne minute to decide how you are going to solve this problem or I will!"

I left then returned to see both of them laughing as they each took turns on the bike and they looked at and both said to me, "What?" I gleefully returned to my raking, a bit proud of myself that I had allowed God’s grace a chance for a change.

For parents or anyone who has witnesses such events drives home the reality of aspects of family life. It can be extremely rewarding, a place of real living and joy. It can also be a place of frustration, anger, hurt and sadness. Family life is a wondrous and sometimes arduous thing for all. It shapes the people we are going to be from the earliest time of our life and continues until the ends of our days. For people of faith the way our children will know and understand God has a lot to do with how we parent in love or in neglect or abuse. Family life is characterized by such an awesome responsibility and possibility.

As a parent I know that my example will greatly determine the emotional physical, psychological and spiritual health of my children. As a Catholic parent I look to the Holy Family for guidance about such a responsibility. But, apart from a few excerpts from Matt. and Lk., we really don’t know much about Jesus’ family life. All we know is that his family experienced the joys and hardships of every family.

Today we are told that Joseph and Mary experienced that profound anxiety of discovering that Jesus was missing. They experienced relief when he is found in the temple. But if my instincts are correct I bet they were thinking—"wait until we get him home." Jesus certainly was doing something important for his mission and for them. As adults though we sometimes don’t have all answers to things—or if we once knew the answer we had forgotten the answer and our children serve to remind us of what is real.

That is what is so important about this scene from Luke’s gospel. Wisdom comes from those in touch with God that have not been baffled or confused by the rationalizations and rejection of the gospel that is so much of the adult world. Recently Pope John Paul II called for the elimination of the death penalty; the U. S. Catholic Bishops in a recent pastoral letter on Criminal Justice supported this teaching. Many Catholics simply ignore or reject such teaching in favor of a firestorm of rationalizations to uphold the death penalty all cleverly disguising this "wolf" in "sheep’s clothing" as justice. This preference for revenge is a rejection of the wisdom of the gospel, pure and simple. It believes that death is the answer or merely punishment. It believes that is the only answer open to us. But God doesn’t. God desires the redemption, correction and empowerment of people so that they can contribute to society, or at least be prevented from doing further harm by life imprisonment.

In such teaching the Church assumes the role of the 12 year old Jesus teaching the elders. If the elders of the world are attentive they can learn from this wisdom and experience the grace of God that presses to break into our lives. In this way our lives will be changed and we will know God’s liberating and redemptive power.

The Holy Family raises this up to us. They trusted in the power of God’s grace even when things told them not to. I think it is fair to surmise that what typified the life of this family was a concern for love, justice and peace all subsumed in the larder framework of the compassion of God. Otherwise Jesus would not have needed to be born of Mary.

All families are confronted with the realities of life, but what makes the difference is how that family faces life, with the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of God!

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded January 13, 2001