Feast of the Holy Family – 2021
At my father’s funeral several years ago, I happened to meet a man whom I had not known before. When I asked him his connection to my father he replied, “Well actually my great, great grandfather was responsible for bringing your great, great grandfather to Tasmania.” I was fascinated by the information which resolved some confusion as to how my forbears came to Tasmania. The man at the funeral had the answer: Samuel Ranson arrived in the Port of Launceston on 12 August 1841 to be the overseer of Wickford’s – a property near the township of Longford, near Launceston. This disclosure opened up further discovery for me – that my great, great grandfather had come from Suffolk, England and had grown up there at the very the time John Constable was painting the same countryside.
Family histories are riveting to the one who is immersed in them; tedious, of course, to those who have to listen. However, all of us have a keen interest in knowing just where we have come from. I think we have this innate need to know the factors that have shaped who we are – whether they be generational or chromosomal. It was the same curiosity that led me several years ago to have my DNA tested for its ethnicity, discovering that I am an even mixture of English, Celtic, and German. “It kind of explains everything,” some might be tempted to say.
Each of our families has its narrative that has brought us to who and where we are today. The narrative is not peripheral to our sense of self. Of course, it may not fully determine our choices or our future. Most of my forbears would turn in their graves if they knew there were a Catholic priest in the family! However, our family story gives us a reference for the pathway we forge in the world. There is no need to idealise the story. It is, of course, a complete mixture. However, this is the unique way that God has brought us into being. To receive this and to honour this seems to me important.
On the Sunday following Christmas we celebrate the Family of Nazareth. We think of the immediate family of Mary and Joseph and Jesus. Yet both Mary and Joseph emerge from a long line of tradition which gives shape to who they are and the way they nurture the life of Jesus himself. God has been nudging the history of their families over generations to this point in which a Son is entrusted to their care. This genealogy is not random or incidental, but purposeful. It is a powerful sign to us of the sacredness of our relationships – they are not incidental to God’s purpose for us and for the world, but the very means by which that dream is realised. This is why we hold them with seriousness. We cannot know God without them. They are the very means by which we must understand God’s life.
Family life today is more complex than ever. New forms of family have emerged. Our relationships themselves are not straightforward as an increasing number of blended families come into being. Perhaps, indeed, every one of our families bring questions to the fore. All of us know the many pressures that can make family life difficult. Yet, we hold to the undeniable importance of family. And from a Catholic Christian perspective we continue to affirm the sacredness of this most intimate circle of relationships even in the midst of its liabilities and imperfection. The Catechism explains it in this way: “The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life. Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society. The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honour God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society” (n. 2207).
“This is why the Church holds that the good of persons and the proper functioning of society are closely connected with the healthy state of marriage and family life,” as Cardinal Brady of Armagh spoke at a conference in 2008. He went on to say, “The priority of the family over society and over the State has [therefore] to be reaffirmed. The family does not exist for society or the State, but society and the State exist for the family.”[1] The Catechism itself would put it thus: “A man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children, form a family. This institution is prior to any recognition by public authority, which has an obligation to recognize it. It should be considered the normal reference point by which the different forms of family relationship are to be evaluated” (n. 2202).
Our families give us our identity. Their story shapes us. Let us look for those ways to celebrate their significance, to commit to nurturing the fabric of their life, to reach out fostering their inter-connections. Let us treasure the gift that we have for it is in our commitment that we glimpse the nature of the God whom we celebrate in Jesus, born into and raised by a family and its story.
[1] See Cardinal Sean Brady, “The Family as the Foundation of Society” Address at the Céifin Conference, Ennis, Co Clare, 4 November 2008;