The Seasons of Family Life
This Christmas season has us jumping all over the Bible to learn of the life of Jesus. This Sunday we hear Jesus is now twelve years old. Next Sunday the Three Wise Men come to visit the Christ-Child. Then the next Sunday Jesus is an adult being baptized in the Jordan River. All of this in the season of Christmas. If we thought the season of Advent was a little crazy, how will we keep up with the season of Christmas?
Perhaps the Holy Family gives us a clue. We gain an insight into their family life. Jesus is twelve and is coming to understand that He is being called to the Father. He recognizes the temple as His Father’s House. But it is not the right time to begin his ministry. The last line of today’s gospel tells us that Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
There is a time, a season, for everything. We experience these seasons in our life. In a family, there is the season for new love, an exploration of love between a husband and wife. Together, they participate in God’s love and desire for us to be part of creation. Soon, we move into the season of a family with young children. It is still the springtime of family life. Parents have the energy to keep up with the gifts given to them by God. This season passes all too quickly and we find ourselves in the season of summer of family life with our children ready to leave home and our parents needing our support and care. If we do not prepare for this season, it can become a season of conflict, people taking sides. Family life is not a matter of sides, but it is a season. For in a short while this, too, will pass. We find ourselves in the family season of fall. Our children have moved on. We are living in our golden years. A season of time, helping one another, doing things we did not have time to do before. Our life is filled with the colors of fall. And then we slide into the family season of winter. Perhaps we have lost a spouse or a child. Life did not remain the rose garden we thought we had planted. Even our health is more affected with the changing of seasons and time.
With each season we need to accept the advice of the gospel, the same advice that Jesus followed. “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.” Jesus remained with His parents, advancing in wisdom and age and favor before God and man. We need to recognize the seasons in our lives. We need to advance in wisdom from our youth to our golden years. Our age continues to increase so should our wisdom. To advance in favor before God and man is to lead a virtuous life discovered through what we learn over a lifetime given to us by God. A family has seasons that are repeated. Following the gospel gives us the same insight to life that the Holy Family discovered.
May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father and if the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen