Feast of Holy Family - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2013

Matthew’s infancy story is largely a story of darkness: Joseph’s discovery of Mary’s pregnancy [with, strangely, no communication between them]; his feelings of bewilderment, betrayal, and probably of public ridicule.  This trauma was eventually relieved only by an insight learnt in a dream, which removed the pressure by providing some illumination for the present, but gave precious little clarity for the long term.

Following the child’s birth, Joseph learnt about Herod the Great’s determination to assassinate the child – with the consequent urgent need to escape with the family across the border into Egypt – no visa, no job, no contacts and no knowledge, probably, of the language.  After Herod the Great’s death, the family felt free eventually to return to Judea – only to find the situation there as dangerous as before, with the equally violent, paranoid and incompetent Herod Archelaus [successor to Herod the Great, his father] in charge. 

This time, for whatever reasons, the family did not go back to Egypt, but became internal refugees in their own country.  They moved northwards into Galilee – which was under the jurisdiction of Hero Antipas, another of Herod the Great’s sons, but not quite so paranoid.  There they settled and set up residence in Nazareth.  Joseph found work, and the family was able to merge quietly into the local scene and escape official notice – and at last to find some peace.

Against this poignant Christmas background, our Bishop, Bishop Paul Bird, has asked the people of the diocese to pray with him for Australia’s Asylum Seekers, and particularly their children.  I think we need to pray at the same time for the people of Australia and for our leaders, because it is our attitudes and the policies that reflect them that make it necessary that we pray for Asylum Seekers and their children.  It is not just an Australian problem.  Unfortunately, it seems to have become a problem infecting most wealthy Western nations.

Pope Francis had some quite disturbing words to say not long ago when he visited the Italian island of Lampedusa.  Lampedusa is where boat loads of Asylum Seekers from North Africa first put foot on European soil, seeking refuge within the nations of Europe.  Many of them have drowned at sea on their way across.  Sounds familiar!  This is what Pope Francis said in the homily he gave there: "Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters of ours?  All of us respond: 'It wasn't me.  I have nothing to do with it.  It was others, certainly not me.'  Today no one feels responsible for this. We have lost a sense of fraternal responsibility … The culture of well-being, which leads us to think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of others … The globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep."

What haunts me is Francis’s reference to the culture of well-being and the globalization of indifference that render us insensitive and take from us the ability to weep.  They take from us the ability to weep!  I can’t speak for you.  But I know what he is saying; and I am ashamed of myself.

The pope suggested that we pray: "Let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in ourselves, and in those who anonymously make socio-economic decisions that open the way to tragedies like this”.  

I ask myself the further question: How do I need to cooperate with God to whom I pray? I want to look more deeply into myself to discover and to become alert to how much the culture of well-being has seeped into my soul, taking from me the ability to weep – and not just at our national cruelty towards Asylum Seekers but towards a whole lot of other groups and individuals that our culture consigns to the edges and chooses not to see?

I wonder if St Joseph the Refugee [indeed the whole family] might be good ones to pray to and to pray with at this time.