Feast of Holy Family - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

Luke said that Jesus increased in wisdom. How do you grow in wisdom? Perhaps, before that, what is wisdom?

I think that one way of viewing wisdom is: the capacity to respond to life, to its complexity and its never-ending train of experiences, with faith, hope and love.

It begins with the capacity to respond to life with faith. What does that mean? It’s to recognise that there is another dimension to what is going on, a dimension that is trustworthy. I do not need to be in control. What matters is not what is happening but the possibilities that are there in what is happening.

It doesn’t require that God be there to make things happen, but that God is there empowering me to respond – well - and, in the process, to grow.

Trusting in God, wisdom then sets free the capacity to respond to life with hope. God is good. The God who made me, who sustains me right now, who empowers me, who calls and inspires me, is good.

Somehow all will be well – not that I understand “well”. I don’t need to understand “well”, but I believe all will be well – and so I hope; and hope gives me energy. Wisdom is the capacity to use that energy and so to respond to life also with love.

Love ultimately is the way I choose to respond to the God who empowers me and to the people present, and involved with me, in my life. It’s allowing my judgements about people’s behaviour to be irrelevant to my acceptance of them as persons. Love is also allowing my judgements about my own behaviour to be irrelevant to my acceptance of myself as a person.

That doesn’t mean answering - or giving in - to people’s every want. It may indeed mean refusing to give them whatever they want, or to get caught up in their games and their manipulations or their violence - out of my need for their acceptance. It may, indeed, mean calling them to account and demanding responsibility.

Loving, though, does mean a readiness to respond to their true needs to the extent that I responsibly can – and I am, it is important to remember, a limited person with limited energy reserves, limited skills and limited emotional freedom.

But how do I get such faith, hope and love?

I don’t think I have to. They’re there, already given to me by the God who made me, sustains me right now, empowers me, calls and inspires me. They’re there in the core of my being - but they need to be set free. There is an enormous stack of accumulated garbage piled on top of them. 

As well, they can be so easily overwhelmed by the constant noise and visual bombardment of our modern life-style. So we need some silence, some stillness – a lot of it, as much as we responsibly can get.

In the silence and the stillness we need to look at the accumulated garbage (and that can be hard, even frightening), to take stock of it, to sort it out, and to let the sun, the rain and the wind get at it (as it were)  until it settles down a bit. (There can even be useful stuff in there among it all!) The Sacrament of Reconciliation, or a bit of spiritual direction, can often be of help in that process.

Mary’s way to handle the constant flow of experience and to come to terms with life,

wasn’t bad. As Luke said of her a few times in his Infancy Narrative: She treasured her experiences, and pondered them in her heart.

She must have taught Jesus to do the same because, as his life unfolded with all its experiences, Luke declared that he increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and others.

They might make an interesting model for many families.