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This is the Feast of the Holy Family but we are also near New Years when so many people make resolutions. These are a few of my favorites taken from the late Erma Bombeck that focus on family:
1. I'm going to clean this house just as soon as the kids grow up and move out.
2. I will never loan my car to anyone I have given birth to.
3. And just like last year...I am going to remember that my children need love the most when they deserve it the least.
This Feast Day calls us to pray about the meaning of human love and relationships. I offer this true story for your reflection time. Some years ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article by Dr. Paul Ruskin on the “Stages of Aging.” In the article, Dr. Ruskin described a case study he had presented to his students. He described the patient under his care like this:
“The patient neither speaks nor comprehends the spoken word. Sometimes she babbles incoherently for hours on end. She is disoriented about person, place, and time. She does, however, respond to her name… I have worked with her for the past six months, but she still shows complete disregard for her physical appearance and makes no effort to assist her own care. She must be fed, bathed, and clothed by others.
“Because she has no teeth, her food must be pureed. Her shirt is usually soiled from almost incessant drooling. She does not walk. Her sleep pattern is erratic. Often she wakes in the middle of the night and her screaming awakens others. Most of the time she is friendly and happy, but several times a day she gets quite agitated without apparent cause. Then she wails until someone comes to comfort her.”
After presenting the class with this challenging case, Dr. Ruskin then asked his students if any of them would volunteer to take this patient. No one volunteered. Then Dr. Ruskin said, “I’m surprised that none of you offered to help, because actually she is my favorite patient. I get immense pleasure from taking care of her and I am learning so much from her. She has taught me a depth of gratitude I never knew before. She has taught me the spirit of unwavering trust. And she has taught me the power of unconditional love.” Then Dr. Ruskin said, “Let me show you her picture.” He passed it around. It was the photo of his six-month-old baby daughter.
The opening prayer of today’s Mass says, “Teach us the sanctity of human life and love.” Isn’t that what Mother Teresa of Callcutta did with her life and example.
There are five important “T’s” to building relationships. This applies to our spiritual relationship with God as well as with others.
1. TIME Most broken hearted people I have listened to were people who were sorry about the lack of spending time with each other. Look at teenagers. When they fall in love, they instinctively spend great amounts of time with each other. Remember the song, “Cats in the Cradle?” It was about a man who does not spend time with his son and then his son grows up just like him and has no time to spend with his father. Harry Chapin’s wife asked him when he was going to listen to his own work. His response was, “Right now there is too much going on. This summer I’m going to take some time off and we’ll be together more.” He died that summer in a car accident.
2. TALK We need to talk with Jesus. Especially about our fears because fear is the opposite of love. Talk with Jesus and your closest friends about your real feelings.
3. THINK Love brings out the best of thoughts. Think with Jesus. If we are not thinking the best of thoughts we are not loving self, others, or God. At times we are so anxious to express what we are thinking we do not take the time to “get into the other person’s shoes” and experience what they are thinking.
4. TENDERNESS Here is where the role of forgiveness plays a big part. Some people never are able to forgive themselves. Therefore they have an anger or an unforgiving attitude towards others. They are not even aware of this because their unforgiving thoughts toward self blind them about their feelings towards others.
5. TRUST Some people have been hurt deeply in the past. They have lost trust in others and in God. This is when we need to go in prayer to Peter who betrayed Jesus; to Paul who persecuted the church; to the tax collectors Zacchaeus and Matthew; to the Canaanite woman who was bleeding and just wanted to touch the hem of His garment; and to Mary Magdalene.
Some of you have all of these in your relationships with others and with God, but you are still robbed of joy because you have not been healed of a serious loss in your past. Satan plays a tape for you in the back of your mind over, and over again. It is simply one word, “Gone.” You need to go to Jesus in prayer and complete the sentence, “Gone where?”
When I was a seminarian in Rome and was coming home for the first time I was floating on cloud nine. I didn’t even care if they lost my luggage. I kept thinking, “I’m going home.” The reality of that joy stays with me still and it completes the sentence which now gives me hope.
When I hike on my vacations I love to go to Mass in other churches. It’s a real education for me to sit where you do every Sunday. But it’s not the same. I long to come home here, to Holy Family
It is the authenticity of these experiences that give me the ability to finish the sentence; “Gone home.”