A very difficult and rowdy little boy was about to turn seven. So, his parents were trying to decide what to give him for his birthday. His dad suggested a bike. “Do you think maybe that will improve his behavior?” asked his mother. “I doubt it,” said Dad realistically. “But at least it’ll spread it over a wider area.”
Dad was a realist, and that’s what we need to be as we think about our families on this feast of the Holy Family. What is a family? It’s a lot more than shared bloodlines or a common residence. It’s a lot more than hugs and kisses and Christmas dinner. It’s something both messy and wonderful. A family is a gathering together of unfinished, wounded wayfarers who are committed to drawing out the best from each other.
The essence of being family is mutual commitment; intense, bonded commitment that goes beyond sentimentality and self-interest; a commitment that is not casually set aside. That kind of commitment - to the very heart of another - mirrors God’s commitment to us. And like God’s commitment to us, it brings light into dark places and makes “deserts bloom.”
Doing just that, bringing light into dark places and making deserts bloom, is the ultimate vocation of us all. And in the end, it’s the way we’ll know if we really are families or not, and know if we really are God’s people or not. If that is what we’re about, then ever so slowly, we’ll see one another emerging from darkness and getting better. And every step of the other into the sunlight will feel like our own progress.
We’ll begin to see tiny patches of those deserts in one another beginning to bloom. And every new flower there will feel like our own. Those will be the signs. We’ll still be wounded, there will still be a lot of unfinished business in our lives as wayfarers. Life together will still have its stresses and its conflicts. But we’ll know we’re on the way. We’ve started to be family and in the midst of our mutual commitment to one another we will image even more powerfully that we are God’s family in the Church.
On this Feast of the Holy Family let us pray that God grant that we may bring light into dark places wherever they may be found in the lives of others and with God’s grace we can indeed make deserts bloom!