FAMILY  FIGHTS 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 9 Tuesday in Ordinary Time  is, “Family Fights.”

When we drive down the street - any street - in any town - we can assume that family fights go on from time to time - behind those closed doors.

More or less….

We pray for the less….

We pray people get over their fights, spats, irritations and disagreements …

We pray that forgiveness is on the menu.

We pray that a couple knows whether they have a short fuse or a long fuse - and how to difuse a lit fuse.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT FIGHTS

When I was a kid there were more boxing matches on TV than today.

If I remember correctly, there used to be Monday Night Fights, Wednesday Night Fights, and Friday Night Fights.

When I was a kid - and my parents were kids - and their parents were  kids - way before TV - generation after generation, families had fights now and then - not scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Friday - but I’m guessing they are over the same thing - over and over and over again. Déjà vu fights…. About strictness, about lateness, about chores, about not carrying one’s load - about drinking, friends the kids hang out with, etc. etc. etc.

I remember visiting a couple once and in the opening conversation just inside the door, the husband said when the wife went into the kitchen, “By the way, you walked into the middle of a fight. We didn’t plan it, when we invited you over.”  I thought to myself, “Now what do I do?”  Then when he went to the bathroom, she said, “In case you didn’t notice, we’re in the middle of a fight right now.”

Surprise.

I wondered as I was driving home from being in that house, if I would have noticed a fight was going on - if they didn’t tell me.

FLORA DAVIS

Flora Davis once wrote, “Almost all married people fight, although many are ashamed to admit it.  Actually a marriage in which no quarreling at all takes place may well be one that is dead or dying from emotional undernourishment. If you care, you probably fight.”

I’ve also read that all couples fight. It’s the making up that makes the marriage work - that is, if folks learn how to make up well.

Now I don’t know if this is true of fights of parents with their kids.

And I don’t know if this is true of fights of parents with adult kids who have married or are graduated and live elsewhere - or have come back to the nest. It’s cheaper.

The Marriage Problem List that made sense to me down through the years was one I noticed in the New York Daily News when I first got out of the seminary. “The three biggest problems in every Marriage are: money, sex and in-laws.”

But not always….

The fight between Tobit and his wife Anna in today’s first reading is about a goat. He gets her goat - by accusing her of stealing the goat. She shoots back with the “holier than thou” label.  I wondered as I read that - how many times that fight and that labeling took place in that marriage.

When I read that, I thought to myself also: “That’s a good idea for a sermon.”

CONCLUSION

Fighting, nitpicking, setting up for a fight goes on in life. We heard it in the gospel. I wonder if these fights against Jesus - were things these Pharisees and Herodians we heard about in the gospel - showed up their families and in their homes as well. I’ve always noticed much of life is déjà vu  - over and over again -  same basic fight - different situations - different actors. Amen.