September 24, 2014 WBAS Topics Prayer, WBAS Topics For Families, REL Asset - Prayer Card, REL PD - Family Faith
By: Kathy Hendricks
Family: “…an intimate community of persons bound together by bIood, marriage, or adoption for the whole of life.” (A Family Perspective in Church and Society, United States Catholic Conference of Bishops)
I first read this definition of family when the U.S. Bishops’ document was released in 1988. I have referred to it many times since then in talks and articles about the reality of family. I like the broadened understanding of family in the definition because “blood, marriage, and adoption” encompasses all sorts of domestic relationships: married, never-married, widowed, divorced, or separated; parents and non-parents; grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other extended family members; blended families, stepparents and adopted children. It’s a huge mix.
Perhaps my favorite part of the definition, however, is the “bound together” line. It brings to mind Erma Bombeck’s delightful title of one of her books: Family - The Ties that Bind… and Gag! Bombeck had a tremendous wit and a realistic view of family that was never snarky or mean. It simply acknowledged the messiness of familial ties. We have only to turn to the Bible for affirmation of that fact. Some of the stories in the Old Testament are enough to make even the most dysfunctional among us relook at our own situation with relief.
In the New Testament, we have the Holy Family. While paintings often portray them as placid figures, the brief accounts of their life paints a much different picture. Angels appear unexpectedly, visitors both scruffy and exotic show up unannounced, and the family flees across the border to escape the violent acts of a paranoid king. As a mother, I have long been grateful that they are called the holy family and not the perfect one. This makes them more relatable as role models. Saint Therese of Lisieux describes holiness as “… simply doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be.” Mary and Joseph exemplify this by their readiness to take part in a plan that must have perplexed them at times. Luke’s description of Mary “pondering these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51) speaks to the unfolding understanding that comes with the parental territory.
I noticed that one of the family saints listed for the upcoming World Meeting of Families is Mary, Undoer of Knots. What a wonderful figure to turn to in prayer when we feel our own family ties entangling us in anxiety, fear, or confusion. It affirms how the only way to stay bound together in love is by opening ourselves to the wondrous workings of God.
Bright Ideas
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Visit the World Meeting of Families and learn more about this exciting event taking place in Philadelphia in September 2015.
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Download my Prayer for Families and share it in your home or parish.