December 29 

  [media presentation below]

GospelThink

Sunday, December 29, Holy Family

LUKE 2:41-52
The Lord was doing what he was sent to do.

Prayerthoughts
a. The Holy Family followed the Jewish Law. As I follow the law of Jesus and the Church, what law do I think is more important than the others and why? (This is the task of the meditation.)-

b. Jesus was “lost.” I feel at times that I have “lost” my fervor as a committed Christian. What should I do to be a better Christian in these days of my life?

c. Those who were listening to the boy Jesus were astounded by his answers. As I read the Scriptures, I too must be astounded by the words and directives. Is the reading of Scripture as important as it should be in my life?

d. Mary and Joseph ask the important question of Jesus: “why?” As I ask that question of the faith I have accepted, do I look for a complete understanding of my faith? Do I allow that faith to be a true guide?

e. Jesus says that he “must be in the house of God.” Do I often think of the presence of God wherever I am at every moment of the day and my life? What effect should it have in my life?

f. Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph. Jesus, the important person in that Holy Family was obedient to other mere mortals. Am I too prideful in the way I live?

g. Mary kept all these things in her heart, always thinking about the importance of her son and what it should mean. Do I try to make Jesus’s thoughts and actions a true guide to everything that I do?

h. My prayerthoughts…

Today I will answer letter a. List the three laws in order of importance.

Some Thoughts on the Liturgy

LISTENING WITH THE HEART TO OUR FAMILIES

+ The evangelist Luke uses a word in the Gospel today that is important to know

- a word that has come down as a primary relationship of children to parents, but it goes much further than that

- the word is “obey”:

Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph.

- the derivation of the English word is from the Latin word, audire—“to listen completely”, or “to thoroughly listen”

- its full meaning would be: I obey, that is, I listen to the word of another and I will follow it completely

+ We can call it listening with the “heart”

- that is, listening in such a way that we determine how another feels and why they feel the way they do

- it is an art that young mothers and fathers must learn as they work with their new-born child

- you listen with a sense of being able to figure out what the other person wants without even being told

- it is an art that takes a relatively long time to accomplish because we must keep working at trying to figure out what the other is really saying

+ I recommend to you a movie of a couple of years ago called “The Sixth Sense”

- its ending is quite different, and one that you have to study just a little, and I’ll not give that away

- but the point is that the doctor in the movie discovered that he simply had to learn to listen with the heart

- “listening with the heart” is among the most important characteristics to learn as a truly spiritual human being

- the problem is that we are much more in tune with what we want and our own needs than we are in tune with others, and therefore we don’t listen to them

+ There are very practical conclusions to all of this as we think of the feast of Holy Family today

- those conclusions touch the relationship between husband and wife—which is primary in the family, they touch the relationship between parents and their children, and just the opposite, the relationship between children and their parents

+ Maybe the primary conclusions would be three-fold—TALK, TIME, and PRAY:

- obeying and listening with the heart in the family means that there will be TALK—communication—among family members

- talking on a deeper level, and truly listening to the other

- sometimes a counselor, therapist is necessary to help in this regard, especially between husband and wife

- it means that we will spend TIME together as a family, so that we can talk and listen

- it is my opinion that we are spending far too much time making money and far too little time making family

- and it means that our family will be involved with God through PRAYER, public and private

- children must see prayer in the home; they are not going to see it in society or in public schools

+ If the family develops this sense of “obeying” that is, “listening with the heart” to each other in the family,

- then, there will be the ability to face the problems that occur

- the ability to work with tragedies when they happen

- because we will learn to talk, take the time to do it, and always pray about it.