A Concord Pastor Comments: The eleventh of the Twelve Days of Christmas

The Twelve Days begin on Christmas Day and end on January 5, the day before the traditional date for Epiphany. On these 12 days between Christmas and Epiphany, we'll look at some images of Mary and Joseph and Jesus. For previous entries, click here.
Twelve Days 2012
The eleventh of the Twelve Days of Christmas: January 4

The Schmalz studio gives us this beautiful image of the Holy Family. Every family faces the question of how to bond into a unity that nourishes and supports each of the its members and the family as a whole at the same time.

I have no doubt that the Holy Family had to face the same question. How did Mary come to understand how God had touched her life and at the same time grow close to Joseph, her husband? How did Joseph learn to accept his foster-son, Jesus, as his own? How did Jesus find ways to love his family while at the same time growing in the knowledge that he had to "be about his Father's business?"

None of these dynamics would have been easy or simple - all required surrender to God and others - and the sacrifice of one's own needs and understanding and desires...

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
teach us in our families and in the Church
to respect one another
and to accept the many different ways
God shapes our lives and calls us to serve...

Bind us together as one,
especially in the things that make us different..

Keep us as one
as we grow in your love and in love of one another...

Give us the patience we need
to grow as a family
and to grow as a parish family
in the life of the Church...

Draw us together,
knit us as one,
especially when we are tempted
to stand apart from each other...

Let our desire to be faithful to you
be the fidelity that keeps us together...

Amen.