The Child Grew

The Child Grew

Christmas is a time for the family. Relatives visit or phone. Relationships are celebrated and deepened. Work day eyes are turned to children and they get presents as signs of love and joy.

The family is a place of growth. There are three words in the gospel that remind us of this universal truth; ‘the child grew’ (Luke 2:40). Let’s get away from the idea of the family in Nazareth was a place of perfect peace. The one thing we know about Jesus’ growing years is that he caused his parents a mammoth headache when he was twelve. Growth means friction. Learning means trying things out and seeing how far one can go and making constant mistakes.

The family is also a place of love and security. The one thing a young child knows is that he or she always has somewhere to run to. And as the child grows this sense of a secure home gives him confidence to explore. ‘If things don’t work out I have always somewhere to return to.’ It is so important for parents of teenage children to always welcome their children home, no matter what they get up to. We call it ‘love without conditions,’ which is what God does with all of us.

And the family is a place of prayer. This is a statement about those with religious faith whereas the other two above apply to everyone. Not every family prays together but those who do will tell you how it helped even if the prayers at times seem like a boring distraction from more pleasant pursuits. The essence of prayer is to stretch a person beyond what they might like to settle for. Prayer opens up the divine horizon in the human being and it is nearly always learnt in the family.

All the above is the ideal and we know that there are many families where it simply does not happen. The friction children experience is destructive. There is no security and little love. How a child survives and often overcomes such a childhood is an amazing sign of the human resilience. We know that many do.

Jesus’ becoming one of us was that he grew up in a human family with all the ‘rough and tumble’ that involves .

28 Dec 2014                            The Holy Family    

Sir 3:2-6, 12-14                       Col 3:12-21                             Like 2:22-40