Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

December 27, 2009

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church, 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

Luke 2:41-52

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen

            I told you on Christmas Eve that I had spoken with diocesan officials about our permanent location in light of the fact that this church, St. Anthony of Padua, may soon be sold to an interested buyer.  I indicated to Cardinal Rigali’s representatives that I would like to have the Society remain centrally located, and I have proposed Holy Family Church, across from Cooper’s Seafood Restaurant, as the ideal location from which to conduct our ministry.  Holy Family will close next year, and we will be leaving here next year, as well; so the timing is right.  Today, however, I will not focus on practical considerations such as this but on the rationale for why we must remain centrally located in the city of Scranton, whether or not we in fact end up at Holy Family Church downtown.  You need to know why I am looking where I am looking, and fortunately this relates to today’s feast, the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

            I will begin with a statistic I read earlier this year that indicated that in 2006, for the first time, more children in the city of Scranton were born to unwed parents than to parents who are married.  And it was not even close:  there were dozens more children born out of wedlock than in.  My point, of course, is that in the city of Scranton, Catholic family life of a kind that is faithful to the teachings of the Church appears to be sorely lacking.  Indeed, our experience, if we know more than ten people in Scranton, would confirm what the statistics tell us—many children here—even more than half—are being born to parents who are not married.

            The experience of our community at the same time indicates that most of the members of the Society with young children are married and those that are not are moving towards marriage.  This is important because, in this sense, the Society is counter-cultural.  In a city where most children are born out of wedlock, we have formed a community, completely by the providence of God, wherein most of our children are born into healthy marriages.  This provides us with the opportunity to be a witness to the world outside our walls, which we must understand to be not just our opportunity but our obligation.

            To celebrate Christmas is to celebrate the Incarnation—God made man in Jesus Christ—Jesus coming among us as a man.  To live out Christmas—to live out the Incarnation—means that we must live among the people who need our witness and our love the most, just as Jesus came and lived among those who needed His witness and love the most.

            Therefore, I have not considered churches that have closed that are located in outlying areas.  One church was proposed to me as ideal because it is close to an exit on the highway.  That just means it’s easy to leave as quickly as possible to go back to our homes where we are most comfortable.  The Incarnation is not about coming and going quickly, but about lingering, staying amongst the people who are desperately in need of an alternative to the reality with which they are confronted on a daily basis.  The only way they can choose the alternative is if they can see it, and they will not see it if it whizzes by once a week at 70 miles per hour.

            Our community as Catholic churches go is unique.  We are blessed to have as our pastor a man who is married with six young children.  If we are to use this particular gift the Holy Spirit has given us, we must not hide my marriage and children, but we must use this gift as a building block for something bigger than the anomaly of a married priest with children.  I believe that our family is called to be a witness to the beauty of Catholic family life, and I believe, likewise, that this witness must be located where it is needed most—not where it is safest, or the most pastoral, or most conveniently close to the highway, but where it is most needed.  Holy Family Church fits the bill because it has low-income housing on one side and a neighborhood full of immigrants on the other.  I am open to considering other churches, also, but my primary criteria will be whether the location is one in which the witness to the beauty of Catholic family life is most needed.

            The advantage of having a permanent home is that our community can then be built around the church in a physical, that is, an Incarnational, way.  After all, our mission is not about my family and me, but about the people the Lord has called us to reach.  Therefore, we can encourage the development of a critical mass of Catholic families in a particular area, which can serve to be the larger witness to the truth that the needy need to see.

            What then is the role of those without young children?  Our first lesson from Sirach makes clear that Catholic family life is a multigenerational enterprise:  “O son, help your father in his old age. . . do not despise him all the days of his life.”  In the same way that young families help their aging parents, so parents help those with young children.  I regularly invite members of our congregation without young children to help care for my children.  So do my sister and brother.  And what this use indicates is the sense of community that, again, is so lacking in the culture in which we live.  That is, our big families can help to foster the creation of communal ties, not only within families, but also across generational lines within our church family.  This, too, is a necessary witness, because what we often see in disordered families is that the disorder is multigenerational, as well.  Young families are very often alienated from older people who could be to them a witness of stable, peaceful and joyful home life.  Older adults actively involved in the lives of young families offer a mutually beneficial witness.  The young families receive an example and physical assistance, while the older adult retains his involvement in a community of love.

            In the end, this love must be our objective, for the crisis in the American family has its roots in the failure to love rightly.  Our community, as small as it is, has the obligation to show others how love is lived out.  We do not pretend that it is easy—the reason we require help from our older members is that it is so hard.  But the fruits of our love are peace and joy, two virtues sadly lacking in too many Scranton neighborhoods.  Because the families lack order, they lack peace, and because they lack peace, they lack joy.

            But they also lack purpose.  I dare say many of our neighbors could not answer the question, “What is the meaning of life?”  What is your life’s purpose?  Our purpose, the means by which our lives derive meaning, is through our love, the daily sacrifices we make on behalf of others—and nowhere is this more evident than in the life of a family modeled upon the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.