The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, & Joseph
A
less-than-reverent Christmas card
I’ve seen in recent years
shows
a horse, a camel, and a donkey
lined up from behind.
Each
beast of burden
has a woman seated on top,
and
each has a bumper sticker on its rump.
The
first one says,
“Our son is an honors student.”
The
second one says,
“Our son is in medical school.”
The
third one says,
“Our son is God.”
“Well!”
sneers one of the women.
“If
it isn’t Mary and Joseph…”
I
suspect that, for most of you as it does for me,
Christmas
means a little extra time spent with family.
And
whenever we get together,
I
marvel to watch my siblings raising their children.
It’s
such an incredible responsibility!
(Of
course, often as I’m headed back here to Malone
I’m
asked, “Do you want to take them with you?”
Celibacy
isn’t all sacrifice…)
While
I was pastor in Old Forge,
a
young family there
gave
me a wonderful children’s book one Christmas
called,
Father and Son: A Nativity Story,
by
British author Geraldine McCaughrean.
The
flap of the dust jacket says,
“Every
day new parents are awed by the miracle of life,
and
by the responsibility that comes with being entrusted
with
a tiny perfect person to protect and teach.
But
what if you had a baby
whose
coming was even more of a miracle?”
And
so, on this feast of the Holy Family,
I
want to share this story with you...
After the star had set,
after the angels had roosted,
after the shepherds had
hurried back to their sheep,
there was one person still
awake in the dark stable.
Joseph sat watching the baby
asleep in the manger of straw.
“Mine, but not mine,” he
whispered.
“How am I supposed to stand
in for your real Father?
How is a simple man like me
to bring up the Son of God?
“Not a good start.
I could not even find him a
proper place to be born,
a proper bed to sleep in—
he who has cradled us all in
his hands since the Start of Time.
“What lullabies should I
sing to someone
who taught the angels to
dance
and peppered the sky with
songbirds?
“How can I teach him his
words and letters:
he who strung the alphabet
together,
he who whispered dreams into
a million, million ears,
in a thousand different
languages?
“The very thought of it
leaves me speechless.
“How can I teach him the
Scriptures?
It will be like reading him
a book he wrote himself!
“What stories can I tell
him?
He wrote the whole history
of the world.
“What jokes?
He knows them all.
“Didn’t he invent the
hilarious hippopotamus
and make the rivers gurgle
with laughter?
“Didn’t he form the first
face, wink, and make it smile?
“Someone tell me: how do I
protect a child
whose arm brandished the
first bolt of lightening,
who lobbed the first
thunderclap,
who wears sunlight for
armor, and a helmet of stars?
“And yet…and yet…somehow
my heart quakes for you,
child, small as you are.
“How shall I teach you Right
from Wrong,
when it was YOU who drew up
the rules,
YOU who parted Good from
Bad?
“How?
“When I get angry and lose
my temper, who will be to blame?
Always me, I suppose.
“How do I feed and clothe
someone
who seeded the oceans with
fish and hung fruit in the trees?
Who shod the camels and
crowned the deer?
“It’s bread and fish from
now on, son,
and clothes no better than
mine.
“What games shall we play,
boy, you and I?
I mean, how can I
rough-and-tumble with someone
who pinned the ocean in
place with a single, tack-headed moon?
“And how shall I ever
astound you, child, as my father did me?
You are the one who fitted
the chicken into the egg
and the oak tree into an
acorn!
“How can I put a roof over
your head,
knowing it was you who
glass-roofed the world
and thatched the sky with
clouds,
and stitched the snow with
threads of melting silver?
“I am a carpenter,
child.
By rights, you should learn
my trade.
But how can I teach you to
plane a door,
knowing it was you who
planed the plains,
who carved the valleys and
hewed the hills,
the wind in your one hand
and rain in the other?
“How?
“What presents can I offer
you
who has already given me
everything?
This wife.
This night.
This happiness.
This son.
“What shall I pass down to
you, little one,
apart from a world of
Love?
Not as much as the color of
my eyes.
Not even my name.
“And yet…I’ve been thinking,
child…
“My hands are strong, God
knows.
And everyone needs an extra
pair of hands
from time to time.
“So that’s what I’ll give
you, my son.
That’s what I’ll be, God
willing.
A helping hand.”
So, long after the star had
set, after the angels had roosted,
after the shepherds had
hurried back to their sheep,
there was one person still
awake in the dark stable,
watching over a sleeping
child…
…while his God was watching
over him.
Whether
it’s parents raising young children,
grown
children caring for elderly parents,
schoolmates,
coworkers, neighbors,
or
even fellow parishioners looking out for each other,
being
a family, as St. Paul tells the Colossians,
is
about compassion, kindness, humility,
gentleness, patience,
bearing with and forgiving one
another,
and over all these things putting
on love.
It’s
about being a helping hand—God’s helping hand.
For
in that tiny child of Bethlehem,
the
Son of God did not only come
to
dwell with Mary and Joseph;
the
Son of God has come to—and continues to—
dwell
with all of us,
to make of us his brothers and sisters,
to form us as the one holy family of God.
to make of us his brothers and sisters,
to form us as the one holy family of God.
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