THE FAMILY OF THE WOMAN WHO FEARS GOD

THE HOLY FAMILY   

1 Sam 1:20-22,24-28; Ps 128:1-5; 1 John 3:1-2,21-24; Lk 2:41-52

The Word of God in the Family

The Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth on the Sunday between Christmas and the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, which we celebrate on the first of January. Hence, the Holy Family celebration must fall within the Octave of Christmas. In this celebration, the Church invites us to draw back a bit to have a full view of the Nativity scene. To our focus on the child Jesus, is therefore added Mary, the mother of the child Jesus, and Joseph, his foster father or guardian. So, we add to the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word his appearance in the milieu of the family. The fuller gaze helps us to accentuate the importance of family life for the revelation of God. The implication is that the family is a theophany or a place of God’s self-communication. The celebration of the Holy Family calls our attention to this mystery. The original fall happened outside the family, in the sense that Eve fell into sin when she was not in the company of the man whom she was to complement. Subsequently, God situates the sign of salvation in the family to emphasise the importance of the family for salvation. God gives his grace and salvation in the company of the man and woman.

The story of Hannah and her husband Elkanah, demonstrates the truth about the family being a place of sacrifice and worship of God and the privileged role of the woman therein. Purified by her initial barrenness, Hannah learned to pour out her heart in prayer to God daily and in the Temple where she goes with her husband. Her faith and love for God strengthened her love for her husband and her fidelity in being a companion to him. Their love and fidelity to each other and God prepared them to receive Samuel who became a unique prophet-judge for Israel. In the first reading, we read about the gift of the baby and his dedication to God in the Temple. “Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, and called him Samuel ‘since’ she said ‘I asked the Lord for him.’ The deep understanding of Hannah and Elkanah in God’s involvement in their family’s trials and difficulties enabled them to make worthy sacrifices to God in appreciation of his graces and gifts. “As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying to the Lord. This is the child I prayed for, and the Lord granted me what I asked him. Now I make him over to the Lord for the whole of his life. He is made over to the Lord.” Hannah's sacrifice was in union with her husband Elkanah, though she is the prime motivator since Elkanah had another wife. Her story teaches us the importance of the woman in the family. According to the scripture, the family's spirituality is determined by the woman, and not the man who engages in external affairs. Proverb 31 is a good reference for this understanding.

Both the fall and the sign of salvation God gave us substantiate this understanding of the important role of the woman in the family. The company the woman keeps is of utmost importance for the family's welfare. Eve kept the company of the evil one and enslaved her family. Hence, God put enmity between the woman and the serpent to ensure our salvation. So, Mary kept the company of God and blessed and preserved her family. Like Elkanah and his family, Joseph and Mary constantly went to Jerusalem to worship and offer sacrifices to God with the Infant Jesus Christ. As we have noted in the case of Hannah, the Temple worship flows from the activities in the family. The passage from the Gospel reveals that Mary evaluates the daily events with the light of God’s word, which she constantly stores in her heart. “His mother stored up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men.” She did not understand everything, but she stores them in her heart for contemplation and prayer.

To secure our salvation, God did not bother much with the man because he would ordinarily follow his head--the Eternal Word--if his heart—the woman—does not lead him away from doing what he understands. Therefore, that man is blessed to whom the Lord gives a virtuous wife, for he will surely fear God and walk in his ways. “By the labour of your hands you shall eat. You will be happy and prosper. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the heart of your house; your children like shoots of the olive, around your table.” We note then that a family belongs to God if the woman is a temple of the Eternal Word, reading, meditating, contemplating the word of God, and feeding her husband and children with the fruit of her contemplation through her godly behaviour and Gospel imbued demeanour. Hence, the scripture calls her a fruitful vine in the house; she makes her household children of God through the Gospel values she teaches. “Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.” We become children of God by receiving the word of God in the family and we eat of him, thanks to the woman who eats of the tree of life and gives her husband and children to eat too. May the Blessed Virgin Mother of the Holy Family of Nazareth pray for us, and for all women called to be a mother.

Let us pray: O God, who were pleased to give us the shining example of the Holy Family, graciously grant that we may imitate them in practising the virtues of family life and in the bonds of charity, and so, in the joy of your house, delight one day in eternal rewards. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.