HOLY FAMILY SUNDAY
Number One: A
family is a place where one learns one’s first words, first language. “Ma Ma” -
“Da Da” - “Look!” - “Want” - “Need” - “Help” - “No” - “Yes” - "More" - “Love” - "Please! Please!" and
“I’m sorry.” May the words and language
spoken here in our home - be words of love and kindness, gentleness and joy,
giving and forgiving.
Number One: The words we learned and the words we use.
Number One: The words we learned and the words we use.
Number Two: A family is a place of memories and stories -
history, herstory, moments, incidents, time together, experiencing the twists
and turns of life - where one is creating one’s unwritten autobiography - and
reading the unwritten biography of those with us on the same shelf - the same
house - that we are together in. As
someone once said, “When an old person dies, it’s as if a library burnt
down.”
Number Two: We are history books - in process - becoming who we are page by page. We are talking books - hopefully taking the time to read - to listen to - to talk to each other.
Number Two: We are history books - in process - becoming who we are page by page. We are talking books - hopefully taking the time to read - to listen to - to talk to each other.
Number Three: A family is a place where not only mom and
dad are honored, so too grandparents, visitors, the little ones - teenagers - and ourselves as well.
Number Three: A place of honor.
Number Three: A place of honor.
Number Four: A family is a place where people know the
difference between an argument, a
disagreement, a spat - compared to an angry tirade that can leave acid spill at
the table, the bedroom, the heart - where kids know the difference between a
pillow fight and a real fight.
Number Four: There are fights and there are fights.
Number Ten and Last: A family is a place where people
learn to overlook, forgive, understand, accept differences and peculiarities,
as well as sin - but the messy gets cleaned up, people try to speak better, be
better, and learn to understand each other. A “Holy Family” does not mean a
sculpture or statues of people with hands folded [GESTURE] as in prayer - but
hands that clap for each other, hands with a deck of playing cards in hand,
forks in hand, hand in hand, hands on shoulders, hands in prayer and support of
each other. Amen.
Number Ten: A family is a place where we are joined by hand and have to hand it to each other - generation after generation after generation.
Number Four: There are fights and there are fights.
Number Five: A family is the starting place where one
learns the ability to compromise, readjust, reconsider, renegotiate, recalculate - because one has seen
these attitudes and qualities in the ones above us - instead of experiencing
others who are unwilling to adjust or change or recalculate.
Number Five: Learning to compromise.
Number Five: Learning to compromise.
Number Six: A family is a place where members learn to
laugh and love - love being with one another - wanting to be with each other - not just on
Thanksgiving and Christmas - but 365 days a year for those in the same house -
52 times a year - for those who have moved into new families - new homes - using
“techie” stuff well - for communication at a distance - and turned off when up
close - like at the dinner table. It’s a place where people eat with other -
and eat up each other - seeing the sacredness of the family table - receiving
in communion the other - if Christian, seeing each other as the Body of Christ
and saying "Amen" to Christ within the other.
Number Six: Experiencing the Real Presence of each other.
Number Six: Experiencing the Real Presence of each other.
Number Seven: A family is a place where one learns about
faith and hope - in God and in one another - knowing the primary church is the
home - where mom and dad are priests - and kids are parishioners - and members
worship, pray, play with each other - and the classrooms and playgrounds in our
homes are always open.
Number Seven: A home is a church and a school.
Number Seven: A home is a church and a school.
Number Eight: A family is a place where the truth will
set us free. It’s a place where we can be the real me - the real we. It’s a place where we can be at home to each
other - without masks or titles - walk around in t-shirt and sweat pants - but
that doesn’t mean we can be PITA’s to each other. To make a family work, takes
work. Go back and check Number Six.
Number Eight: A home is a place where we can become truly free - but that takes work.
Number Eight: A home is a place where we can become truly free - but that takes work.
Number Nine: A family is a place with a door - where
people make significant - key - wonderful comments to each other - when another
is leaving and when another is coming back home through that door - and those
comments sculpt us into better and better persons.
Number Nine: We’re aware of what is said coming and going in and out the door of our home.
Number Nine: We’re aware of what is said coming and going in and out the door of our home.
Number Ten: A family is a place where we are joined by hand and have to hand it to each other - generation after generation after generation.