Holy Familty Sunday, Dec.26

Scipture: Sirach 3:2-6, Psalm 128: 1-2.3.4-5. Col.3:12-21. Matthew 2:13-15.19-23: Sirach has many practical instructions that are helpful for normal growth behaviors. Today's excerpt is excellent for the obedience that Jesus gives us in the early passages from the Gospel of Luke. He cherished Joseph and Mary and loved them for those years in quiet living with them at Nazareth. They man have lasted a generation and a half. Both Mary and Joseph experience his love for them and his continued obedient devotion. We only have glimpses of those years from the Gospel of Luke, but they are quite helpful for our liturgical listening and learning and for our person lection divian or spiritual meditation on these ;passages. At twelve we have the last reference to him as a boy growing into the young man as he is found by his parents in the Temple. Affer that scene we see him described in this manner: "He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them.He progressed steadfastly in wisdom and age and grace before God and men." The apocryphal Gospels of Pseudo-Matthew and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas try to fill in the large gaps of his hidden years as a boy, but fail to give us a good image of him. His behavior does not conform to what we hear of the boy in the Gospel of Luke. Where we learn he did observe the law and was devoted to it by visiting the holy city and its Temple. These fanciful stories are rather shocking making of him an enfant terrible. This is a long way from the balanced approach of Sirach and Luke on the subject of obedience. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are together during those hidden years. Joseph is true to what we have learned from St.Matthew about him--a strong quiet foster-father who listened carefully to his dreams and to an angel as well as to what Mary shared with him. Mary continues to ponder over everything about her son. Joseph dies first and here the Apocryphal account about Joseph called "Joseph the Carpenter" does justice to this holy saint who becomes the patron of a peaceful and happy death in our devotions. He also is hailed as the universalpatron of the Church. Amen,. Scripture of the Feast of John the Evangelist and Apostle, Dec. 27: I John 1:1-4. Psalm 97:1-2.5-6.11-12. John 20 :2-8: "He saw and believed." The last editor or recdactor of St. John's Gospel gave us these inspiring words about the Beloved Disciple. He is the apostle who stands beyond the tradition of this Gospel and was the model for our own discipleship. In this Gospel the gift of seeing and believing have a special value for the community of the Beloved Disciple. Always the focus of all of the verbs of seeing, believing, touching, listening are on the person of Jesus who is the life, the way, and the truth. We especially hear and read this in the first part of the Fourth Gospel which is the "Book of Signs" meaning chapters one through twelve. The fact that Jesus loves the Beloved Disciple in a special way shows us that this disciple will have a special role in the life of the community of believers. His message will always center on faith in the Person of Jesus and love for Jesus in one's fellow brothers and sisters. Love is evidenced in the second part of the Gospel called the Book of Glory though the word for love is the most frequent theme in chapters thirteen through twenty-one ("agape", "agapan"). These two themes prevail in the first epistle of John addressed to all in a community of equality. The epistles also stress both faith and love as does the Gospel. Our faith leads to the intimacy of Christian love with John the Beloved as our model. John is testifying to this in all of his writings and thus is the second great hearld of the Lord as he surpasses the first herald, John the Baptist. We would do well this day to slowly reread the Prologue of John (1:1-18) where an overture of the whole Gospel is heard or read--as music from a divine source. We should let the hymn simmer in our hearts and minds throughout this day. " Then the disciple whom Jesus loved had arrived at the tomb first goes into the tomb to see the wrappings around the body of Jesus. He saw and believed. Amen.