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It is only in some passage of the "Infancy Gospels" that Joseph, Mary and Jesus appear together as a family: the nativity and flight to Egypt, the Presentation in the Temple, the visit to the Temple when Jesus was twelve years of age. The two readings from Sirach and Colossians, however, indicate what we might expect to see in their family life together. The record of Jesus' public life shows that He was a man united with God, filled with the power of God, a man who went around doing good. Yet He would be condemned as a criminal. To the picture of Jesus in His public life, Luke now adds that of His law-abiding family. Luke's picture of the Holy Family is designed to demonstrate that Jesus' family was law-abiding in both religious and civil matters. Before Jesus was born, Joseph fulfilled his civil obligations by going to Bethlehem to register in the Roman census. The fact that he was accompanied by Mary even though the time for the birth of her child was approaching underscores the depth of their attention to the civil law. Now we read of their religious fidelity to the law of God as promulgated by Moses. Jesus, obedient child of Mary and Joseph, grant all children the grace of a peaceful and loving family. |
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P R A Y I N G W I T H T H E C H U R C H
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That Christians may free themselves from the subtle forms of cultural conditioning which prevent them from recognising the dignity and rights of others
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Our vocation and mission as Christians is to bring the light of Christ to the world in order to preserve the world from corruption by permeating it with the values of the Gospel. We need, ourselves, first and foremost to be enlightened by Christ. We do not generate light, we only refract, reflect and radiate. It is His light that we must cast on the world. The more transparent our lives are with the values of the Gospel, the better is the light of Christ reflected and the less we are seen. The world in which we live is mixed with wheat and weeds. There is good and evil. Consumerism is but the logical sequence of a materialistic way of life. Spiritual values are forgotten. Our wants are made to appear as our needs and we are forced to get so immersed in the joys of this world as to forget the joys of the world to come. We are admonished to be aware lest we be trapped by these and other forms of cultural conditioning that mark this world. Awareness is the first step to change. We pray that this awareness may help us to be delivered from the cultural conditioning that hinders and hampers our vision and prevents us from recognising the dignity and the rights of others. | |
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