TIES, FLAWS, FEUDS
INTRODUCTION
Today is Holy Family Sunday - so I would like to place on the table some family stuff and see if something triggers something. So the title of my homily is, “Family: Ties, Flaws, Feuds.”
There have been movies and TV programs called, “Family Ties” and “Family Feuds.” I don’t know if there have been any entitled, “Family Flaws.” Yet I do know Shakespeare and many movies and novels have gotten into Family Flaws. For example: The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides - both novels by Pat Conroy about dysfunctional family stuff - both becoming movies. Diane Rehm had Pat Conroy on her program this past week - and yes tough family stuff.
Today is Holy Family Sunday - a Sunday at the end of every year and the beginning of a new year - this Sunday after Christmas. Each year this Sunday challenges us and offers us the chance to look backwards at the past year and look forward to the new year - and check out our lives - especially - our family life.
How are we doing? What’s going right? What needs improvement? What we thank God and each other for? What do we ask God and each other forgiveness for?
The title of my homily is, “Family: Ties, Flaws and Feuds.”
Let me take those three issues in my title one by one: Ties, Flaws and Feuds.
FAMILY TIES
Whether we like it or not - we are tied to each other. Whether we agree to it or not - we are tied to each other.
I am at a red light - in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Walking up the street to my left - I see a lady teacher or somebody - with about 15 kids all connected - hooked or leashed together - heading for something or going from something. It was a sight to photograph into my mind and memory.
Were they a kindergarten class going to a museum or a library or back to a classroom? I don’t know.
The light turned green and I began to think - everyone of us walks up and down the streets of where we are - with a whole gaggle of folks all tied to each other heading for somewhere - or going from somewhere.
I’ve seen the same scene with 15 dogs or more - but let’s stick with people.
Family ties ….
It starts with our umbilical cord. We are tied to our mom - more or less. And our dad - more or less. Of course some of us have been adopted or raised by others.
I’ve always heard of the blessing and benefit of having at least one daughter. They will be there for us in our old age.
I like quotes and one that is hanging like a sign on the wall of my mind comes from something Robert C. Byrd, the famous West Virginia senator once said, “One’s family is the most important thing in life. I look at it this way: One of these days I’ll be in a hospital somewhere with four walls around me. And the only people who’ll be with me will be my family.” [New York Times, March 1977]
He died June 28 2010 at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia - at 3 AM. I assume his family were around him especially those days he was in the hospital.
I also like to look at Family Photos - especially enjoying this new way of sending Christmas cards with not just the pictures of the kids - but various family members - especially the parents. And at times I’ve heard folks make fun of family Christmas letters. I think they are wonderful - people summing up their year - especially telling about family moments.
So the first area is to just look at those whom I am tied to. We walk down each block and into each situation connected to them.
We sound like them. We speak their language. We have their mannerisms and their genes.
As Gail Lumet Buckley put it: “Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future.”
FAMILY FLAWS
The second area to look at would be family flaws - issues with those we are tied or connected to.
At times, flaws are hard to name and hard to see and even if we knew them face to face, they are hard to admit.
Various ancient Greek playwrights and philosophers challenge us to see ourselves on stage and see our fatal flaws - our Achilles heel.
Questions: What is my main fatal flaw? What kills, drains, messes me up every time?
I’m sure those who see us day in and day out - know our key flaw: laziness, pride, anger, impatience, procrastination, lust, gluttony, one-up-man-ship, can’t lose, gossip, cut people off in the middle of their story - to tell a story their story triggered.
Are our flaws born with us or acquired from our surroundings? How can three kids in the same household be so, so different?
Baptism - into Christ - is a washing - in the presence of others of the Original Sin - which has never been defined. Baptism is an entrance into the church - with the hope that these folks - especially parents and god-parents and family will make an effort to give us good example.
To be humble is to admit I’m not God. Was that Adam and Eve’s sin - like Lucifer’s sin - this wanting to be totally in charge of my life - without God - without the need for others - without acknowledging others - and I can eat up any forbidden fruit - and think that I won’t be poisoned?
Is the original sin - not so original? Is it basically the sin of choosing to go it alone - whether married on single - being and becoming a walled in self. Is it simply the refusal to receive communion not only with God, not only with Christ - but with all others? I’ll get my own food - my own bread and wine - and basically go it alone.
Or do I admit I need others - and Sunday Mass is a group of people coming together - like at an AA meeting - saying we are powerless over some things. We are flawed and we need God and each other.
FAMILY FEUDS
And lastly there are family feuds.
Some feuds and fights in some families go on for years - well into adulthood - and they show up - at weddings, wakes and funerals.
We walk around tied to and dragging around bad memories of family fights and struggles. We’re like that lady in Meadville, Pennsylvania - walking down the street with all those kids in tow.
Today’s readings from the Wisdom book of Sirach and Paul’s Letter to the people of Colossae, challenge us to be holy, compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, bearing with one another, forgiving one another - and on and on and on.
That second reading has the message to wives to be subordinate to their husbands. Some folks just see that message. It hits buttons and they miss the various other stresses in the text.
Of course, Paul is male and grew up in a very patriarchic society. Attitudes and the place of women are still very much part of the cities in the Mediterranean Basin - and that includes Greece, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, the whole Middle East. But read all his words. There are calls for males to treat their wives better - with deeper love. Read all this words and see that he has come a long way.
Every family has feuds - gripes and grievances - and Paul calls all to challenge each other, avoid all bitterness, encourage and not discourage each other.
CONCLUSION
Today’s gospel ends with Mary and Joseph leaving Egypt and heading back north to Nazareth - not to Bethlehem or Jerusalem in the south.
Today’s gospel ends with the words: “He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, He shall be called a Nazorean.”
I got to Israel once - in January of 2000. When we got off the bus in Nazareth, we went to a Franciscan site - and our tour guide gave a door keeper somewhere there who lead us down under a church to what might have been Jesus’ home in Nazareth. I spotted our guide giving the house guide some cash. He opened up this big door to this place down below and said, “This might well have been Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s home in Nazareth - or at least like this.
It was small and dirty and dark - but we stood there and heard about what it might have been like.
I would assume it would be worth opening up some of our inner closed doors and going down deep inside ourselves and look at our roots, our home, our background - and get in touch with our family ties, family flaws and family feuds.
Best guides: I have found more and more, the best guides and the place to begin is talking with each other. If really bad, get thee to good family therapists.
Just before my sister Peggy died in November, she and my other sister Mary and I, the 3 of us who are left - had a lot of great conversations about our childhood. Good stuff.
In fact, that would be my recommendation for the New Year. Have great family conversations - in person - or e-mail or phone.
Isn’t that a modern need? I hear it on these many high school retreats I’ve been on. Families need to talk to each other.
Aren’t the great meals, those we stay at the table with - long after the last bite.
On Christmas night, at my nieces house, 8 of us did some great talking about years ago. We sat there for about an hour and a half after the Christmas meal. More.
