A: Feast of the Holy Family (29 Dec 2019) - ARTIFICIAL FAMILIES (Mt 2:13-15; 19-23)

The Sunday after Christmas features the feast of the Holy Family, viz., Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Love, harmony, and holiness are exemplified in their family relationship as well as in their individual lives on earth. Accordingly, whereas Jesus is the Son of God, Mary his mother is addressed as “highly favored by God” (Lk 1:28) and “blessed among women” (Lk 1:42). Meanwhile, Joseph is portrayed in the Gospels as just (Mt 1:19), obedient (Mt 1:24), and chaste (Mt 1:25). Indeed, because of this assemblage of sanctity, they must be the holiest family ever.

In today’s gospel, Herod’s ongoing persecution of all infants aged two-years-old and below (Mt 2:13, 16) was rooted in his ambition to solidify and to perpetuate power to himself. Herod needed to get rid of the infant Jesus whom he had perceived as his staunchest rival in the future based on the prophecy he had gathered. We read in Jewish history that Herod was over-zealous in staying into power even to the point of ordering the executions of his own children along with his favorite wife Mariamne whom he all saw as potential threats to his political supremacy. Fittingly, there was a popular saying at that time that goes: “It is better to be Herod’s swine than to be his children”.

As Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were able to survive this fatal monarchical decree through the committed actions of Joseph to protect them at all cost (cf. Mt 2:14; 21), Joseph’s leadership becomes the quintessential example for all fathers. Moreover, Mary and Jesus had their equal share in realizing Joseph’s resolve as the former is described to have pondered these things in her own heart (Lk 2:19), while the latter to have grown strong in God’s wisdom under the tutelage of his supportive parents (Lk 2:40). Hence, it is a no-brainer to claim that the Holy Family is the model of all families, and its life-witnessing becomes a normative guide for all.

However, despite the purported perfection of the members of the Holy Family, the biblical information related to their kinship is far from being smooth. Joseph was not the true biological father of Jesus (his true father is in heaven; cf. Lk 2:49) nor was he the husband of Mary in the fullest sense—they refrained from enjoying the marital consummation, entering into a kind of a chaste companionship (Mt 1:25). Mary, on her part, was only the mother of Jesus biologically, not essentially as he was conceived of the power of the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:20; Lk 1:35). Jesus, having two natures, i.e., human and divine, possesses a divine nature that is extant from the beginning of time being the preexistent Word (Jn 1:1). We can alternatively say that the composition of the Holy Family is not of the normal ideal family where a father and mother are bound to each other in marriage and who are gifted with their own offspring through the marital act. Nevertheless, they remain to be a perfect family since, even if their affinity and blood ties were hazy and problematic, their loving commitment to each other is always pure.

Similarly, our present society confronts us with compositional variations of a domestic family that is different from the usual father-mother-children structure. Our situation now is multifaceted to the point that broken families, single mothers, absentee parents, adopted children, step-siblings, and orphaned kids, among many, replace the familial norm. Furthermore, the advances in Science present complex difficulties such as that of the cases of surrogate motherhood, artificially inseminated zygotes, and genetically modified babies. Still, more complicated is the societal clamor of some sectoral groups for an equal familial determination as enjoyed by the traditional male and female union in parenthood, viz., LGBTQ rights, animal adoption, and the likes.

We are in no position to judge how the family should be constructed nowadays as this realm needs more investigations, consultations, deliberations, and critical reflections. As of the moment, we assert that while the majority of families nowadays are complex in structure, it does not rule out that they can have a perfect commitment to one another as all human beings are all capable of achieving sanctity in any situation. With the example of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, may we open our minds in understanding better these new forms of families, at least initially, by not marginalizing them from our [Christian] society.

- Rex Fortes, CM