A Lenten Look at the Holy Family
When asked by his exasperated parents as to why he was found conversing in the Temple after going missing for several days, Jesus responds, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49, NABRE). And what a powerful response that is — one we should deeply consider. During the season of Lent, we’re called to renew our commitment to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as ways to draw closer to God. Lent is a time for us to prepare ourselves to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a whole forty days for us to walk with Jesus in his earthly life and ministry, in all of his trials and sufferings. And it’s a time for all of us, much like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in this Gospel passage, to find ourselves in God’s house.
During the liturgical calendar, we really only hear about the Holy Family in Advent and Christmas, as well as on their feast days, with a few readings taken from the beginnings of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels. However, we ought to carry the Holy Family with us throughout the year. How often do we really think of the Holy Family together, living family life? Jesus, quite literally God incarnate; Mary, the mother of God and the perfect saint; and St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus and the model of fatherhood. We can spend a lifetime meditating on the mysteries of each of their lives separately, but how do we understand them together, particularly during this season of Lent?
Above all, in our daily lives of faith, we are called to place ourselves in the presence of God, “in the Father’s house,” and to listen to the call of God in our lives. God is so vast and so beyond us, but wants to be near to us, nearer to us than we are to ourselves, especially in this time of Lent. With the Holy Family, the common thread among them is their willingness to place their lives in the presence of God and to recognize their creaturely smallness in comparison to the Father’s vastness. This is the reason why we call them the Holy Family. Our Lenten journey during these forty days is also about humility and obedience. We recognize, much as the Holy Family does, the will of God to draw close to us, and so our call is to respond in love and obedience to the God who loves us first.
Absolutely central to this love of God is the person of Jesus Christ, “Who,” to quote St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness” (Phil. 2:6–7). God chooses to reach down to us as humans and embrace us in our humanness, as one of us. In his life on earth, Jesus was fully obedient to his Father in heaven and “by the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.” Of course, the obedience of Jesus would be tested further still, in his suffering and death on the Cross. To continue Paul’s servant song in Philippians, “he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:7–8). And this obedience is the same that we’re called to during this season of Lent, to place our whole selves in the presence of God — all of our good, all of our bad, our joys and our despairs — and to place our lives in God’s hands.
The other members of the Holy Family, Jesus’s parents, are called to the same self-surrender that Jesus is. They also place themselves “in the Father’s House,” at the service of God in their daily lives. At the Annunciation, Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel, who tells her that she will soon have a child through the Holy Spirit. And how does Mary respond? In obedience: “Let it be done to me according to your word.” And I’m sure she must have been feeling a lot of different emotions about that — joy, surprise, fear, worry, nervousness — and she shares these with her cousin Elizabeth at the Visitation. Of course, all of this leads up to a moment of incredible joy at the birth of Jesus. But as we see at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, with the words of the priest Simeon, it becomes clear to Mary that this moment of joy will soon fade away, as she learns of the difficult journey yet ahead, that her own heart will be pierced. In spite of her inevitable suffering, Mary remains faithful and free from sin, letting her fiat, “let it be done,” carry forward for the rest of her life as she offers her entire self to God.
Jesus and his mother Mary seem to take a lot of the spotlight in the Church, and rightfully so, but let’s not forget about St. Joseph, especially since we’re currently celebrating a year of St. Joseph, declared by Pope Francis. St. Joseph bravely trusts in the word of God given through the angels, taking Mary into his home even at risk of being judged by his community. He goes with Mary to Bethlehem, keeps his family safe on the trek to Egypt, and finally returns back to Nazareth, raising the child Jesus as he “advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.” In Patris Corde, Pope Francis’s brand-new Apostolic Letter announcing the year of St. Joseph, he writes, “In Joseph, Jesus saw the tender love of God” (par. 15). Like Mary and Jesus, Joseph keeps his love for God at the center of everything he does, willing to give everything for God and for his family. Given the responsibility of Joseph to raise his son in the Jewish faith, Jesus most likely heard first about his Heavenly Father from his earthly father, and thus learned humility from one who knew it most deeply.
As we continue our journey into Lent, let’s all consider what it looks like for each of us to place ourselves in the presence of God, “in our Father’s house.” Maybe this means sharing our joys with God and with each other. Maybe it’s in allowing God to give us hope for a future. Maybe it’s in allowing God to help us carry our own crosses. Especially in this liturgical season, we are aware of our call to continual conversion. Regardless where each of us is at, let us remember that we have a God who loves us deeply, wants to be near to us, and calls us to an ever greater love in Christ.
