Posts Tagged ‘12-30-2018’

The Feast of the Holy Family 12-30-2018

Monday, December 31st, 2018

During his 1967 Super Bowl season with the Green Bay Packers, the great quarterback Bart Starr had a deal with his oldest son. For every perfect paper Bart Junior brought home from school, Bart Starr would give him ten cents – a pretty nifty sum of money for a kid back then.
In the course of the season, Starr had a particularly rough game against the (then) St. Louis Cardinals. Starr was discouraged and angry about his own performance. He returned home late that night, weary and battered, after a long plane ride. But his spirits lifted immediately when he found this note on his pillow:
Dear Dad, I thought you played a great game. Love, Bart.
And taped to the note were two dimes.
Within our families we experience the heights of joy and the depths of pain. Our belonging to a family means that each one of us – parent and child – reflects for the other the selfless, limitless and unconditional love of Christ, both in good times and (more importantly) in bad times. The Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus, in the suffering and tragedy they endured together, is a model for us and our own families as we confront the many tensions and crises that threaten the stability, peace and unity that are the joys of being a family.
I would like to leave you with this thought today; in the midst of all the wild and weird conflicts we may face in our families, God wants to be part of them. In the midst of the shouting matches, doors being slammed, people pouting and not speaking to each other, holding grudges, and in alcoholic or abusive situations, GOD THE HOLY IS THERE! God is not embarrassed to be there and God wants to help.
As we begin the year of 2019, I pray that as we face conflicts in our families, when we feel overwhelmed and everything seems impossible and we try to resolve our differences – that we will be humble and wise enough to seek help for ourselves. Especially, the comfort, the grace and the peace that God alone can offer our families.