Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and there are a lot of practicals in these readings. But we’ll start with the more impractical question of what is happening in this Gospel.  What we just heard is a ritual known as a Presentation.  Thirty days after the birth of Jesus, according to the Jewish law, His parents “took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord…” 

 

This was an expectation of all first borns, that they would be presented, offered and redeemed, and if they weren’t, they were killed, well for animals at least.  This goes back to the Exodus from Egypt, the first borns of Israel were redeemed by the blood of lambs, while the first borns of Egypt were killed. First borns were the first fruits which were always dedicated to God.

 

So Jesus, the first born child, was being presented, offered and redeemed by “the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.”  An animal sacrifice was offered to redeem the first born child, for wealthier people it was a lamb, for poorer people it was a pair of birds. 

 

(Briefly, I want to touch on this notion of the first born.  I am the first born son in my family, I have two younger sisters. But whether I had zero siblings, two siblings, or ten, it doesn’t change the fact that I am the first born right?  It didn’t to the Jews.  To say a child was the first born spoke nothing of the next children, if any.

 

The reason that I bring this up is because some anti-Catholic’s will point to the scripture and say “since Jesus is the ‘first-born,’ that means that Mary had other children.” They try to do this to tear down our dogmas about the Blessed Virgin Mary and then use that to sow doubt in general. But this is an incorrect jump, faulty logic on their part, to say “first born indicates a second or more.” Nope, it doesn’t.

 

Make sense?  I just like to clarify stuff like this because sometimes Catholics get caught on these things, and they leave the Church over it.)

 

So at the end of this Gospel it says “When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”  Clearly there isn’t much detail about the practicals of what that looked like, but, I have to believe that the practicals that we heard from Sirach, and also from St. Paul, were followed in their family.

 

This Sirach reading is great, but I want to focus on what St. Paul said today.  He encourages some basics for family life, having “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another,” with love and peace, these are all very important within the family.

 

But I’d like to focus on Paul’s encouragement to “be thankful.” Putting gratitude at the center of family life might not seem like the first or most important thing, but I can testify from my own family life it has been very valuable.

 

Growing up, my family made this a part of our dinner routine.  We would say the standard dinner prayer, “Bless us, O Lord…” and then we would go around and each say something that we were thankful for.  That was really good for us - gratitude puts things in perspective.  It makes us grow in humility.  We recognize all we have is a gift from God, so it limits our pride.

 

Listen again to Paul, he devotes three sentences to Gratitude: “And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

 

My bet is that this gratitude was a big part of the home life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  I mentioned doing this thankfulness exercise at the dinner table, but another one that I have seen with my sister Sara’s family is before bedtime.  

 

This is how they do it: First they pray the “Our Father” together.  Then they go around and say something they are thankful for, everyone has to say at least one thing. Then they go around and make prayers of petition, asking for something for themselves or someone else, though not everyone has to say something. Then they close with a “Hail Mary” a “Glory Be” and an “Angel of God” and if I am there I give them a blessing.

 

Those are a couple of ideas on how to make gratitude more a part of your family, but I am sure you will think of others.  How can you make gratitude a bigger focus in your lives, in “whatever you do,” as Paul said?  What if every time you talked to someone in person or on the phone you shared something you were grateful for?  

 

What if we weaved gratitude into every single conversation we had?  Because so often we just complain. “This is wrong, that is bad,” fine but let’s also look for the good things and talk about them.  Roses and thorns, we have them both, can we focus on the Roses just a little more and be appreciative of them?

 

I believe making gratitude a central focus would have an amazing impact on ourselves, our family, and our friends.

 

As we turn to the Eucharist, a word which means “to give thanks” in Greek, Eucharistia, consider what you are thankful for, starting with Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins - we are first and foremost thankful for our redemption, and His redeeming sacrifice is why we don’t do presentation rituals anymore, except for this one here at the Mass, this glorious exchange - His blood for ours!

 

Then we should consider all the gifts and blessings from this year, thanking God for everything, appreciating what we have and focusing more on those roses in our lives.  

 

God has given us so much, we need to thank Him for the love He has shown us while considering the ways we can show our gratitude more in the new year.