Youth, Families & Obedience

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“When Jesus was 12 years old,” – This is the only Gospel we have of our Lord as an adolescent. And so it’s especially important for understanding the time of adolescence, especially important for young people. I was seeing a study recently which showed that about 10 to 15 years ago, the mental health of young people, as self-reported, began to deteriorate much more rapidly, and they were investigating what happened 10 to 15 years ago. And the causes that they seem to be able to identify was the fact of smartphones, so many young people having smartphones and social media, many new forms of social media and the powerful impact that that had. And so the young people today are facing challenges that no other generation has faced. And so there’s no like, years and years of experience about what the effect of these things will be and how to deal with them, because this is something so new, which is having such a big impact, and a lot of times a very negative impact. And so because the time of adolescence is such an important time, because it’s the time in which many decisions which will affect the rest of a person’s life are being made. And so this Gospel, this Gospel that the Scripture gives us, this light, is so important, especially as we’re living a time of so many different ideas and so many conflicting voices and confusion. It’s often hard to know what’s true, what’s right. And so it’s very helpful to have the light of the Gospel itself, the light of our Lord Himself, and to see the example and our Lord and His Holy Family, because that gives us a light which is not manipulated, but which is from the Lord. And so in this gospel today, our Blessed Mother says, “Son, why have You done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And as some mystics and Maria Val Torta, it reminds us that Joseph remembered very well that it wasn’t that many years that Herod was trying to kill his son, and he killed many children. And so Joseph’s anxiety was extreme at this point. But then Jesus responds, “why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” And so this is a mysterious passage. Jesus is very aware of His divine mission. And our Lord, of course, is completely unique. But it seems like oftentimes, a person can get a sense of their mission very young, as a young child, that the Lord can give a person the light of their call. Oftentimes it’s easier as a young child, because then when they start to get older, all sorts of influences make it much more difficult. But many times that call comes very young, and our Lord, of course, was aware of His call, and so He was expressing here the call He had, the eternal call He had from His Father, and His awareness that that was the absolute priority in His life. And we published some months ago a message that the Lord had given us way back in 2018 though, that He wanted us to share with the bishops. And it was on true obedience, which is such a key topic and a real important topic for the situation we’re in now. But in that message on obedience, He referred precisely to this Gospel. And He said, “reflect on how I acted when I was 12, remaining in the Temple. I obeyed the voice of the Father who called Me to give witness before the doctors of the law, disobeying my parents on earth.” So obeying His Father, which meant disobeying His parents on earth. And He says, “and reflect on who they were, their holiness.” That is, they were the perfect parents. And yet, even in that case, Jesus had to show that His Father was above all. He said, “Reflect on who they were, their holiness. And despite that, in this instance, there was a greater obedience.” And so one of the points He’s making here is that the freedom that God has given to each person, the freedom that our human dignity entails, and we see most clearly in our Lord Himself. So even before His most fundamental duties and His families, the fundamental family bonds, He had to be free to respond to His Father and in His divinity and in His humanity. In our culture today, we have a culture which talks a lot about freedom and youth.  Often and especially myself growing up in the 60s and 70s. I mean, those were often thought that the youth was encouraged to be rebellious, but a lot of rebelliousness is just conformity. It’s just actually conformity to the world, conformity to peer pressure, conformity to the evil one, which is keeping us from our true call. But there is a good rebelliousness. There’s the good rebelliousness, which is the rebelliousness, against the world and against the evil one. And so Jesus is the great example of freedom. And so what does He do? This Gospel is manifesting that Jesus is absolutely free. And so what does He do? You might expect from Him. So, at 12 years old, like John the Baptist, was probably about that age when he took off for the desert. And so you might expect Jesus to do that same thing or start His preaching. And so right after Jesus shows that He has to be obedient to His Father above all, what this Gospel shows is that He went back, He went back home. And it says, “And He went down with them,” that is with His parents, “and He came to Nazareth, and He was obedient to them.” And so right at the moment where He shows His divine freedom to obey the Father, the next thing He does is go back home and be obedient to His family. So this Gospel is not a Gospel which is a rejection of family life and obedience, but it shows actually things in a proper order, obedience to God above all. But that obedience to God also calls for a just obedience in the family. So Jesus doesn’t leave on His mission right away. He could have, and in some ways, it might have seemed to make more sense, because if He’s gone, if He only has 33 years to fulfill His great mission, the greatest mission of all. And 33 years is not a long time to fulfill a mission. I mean, those of us who are way past 33 years know that that’s not, 33 years, is not that long. And He only devotes three of those years to that, so it would have seemed to make sense for Him to start His mission a lot earlier. But He devoted most of His time to living in His family and to be obedient and being obedient to His parents. And so this is our Lord Himself giving the example of obedience to His Father, but also the example of obedience to His parents on earth, even though He was holier than them, even though He was more knowledgeable than them. And so again, this is showing God’s given us the proper order. Jesus always obeyed His Father, and He shows us that we should obey human authority when it’s not opposed to God’s will. And you know, that’s, again, this key question for our little mission, obey human authority when it’s not opposed to God’s will. And so it’s a lesson on true obedience. And obedience in our cultures is kind of a dirty word, and a lot of that, you know, how many movies show that a person, especially a young person, they succeed by disobeying? That seems like always the message, always, it’s by disobeying. Think of the movies you see where a young person succeeds by being obedient to their parents, versus how many movies where a young person succeeds by not obeying their parents, Which is more common? And so the message is often a message of disobedience. So how are we to understand when to obey and when to not obey? It helps to remember the goal of our life. It’s very important to realize what is the goal of our life. And this, just remembering this fact clears up a lot of confusion. The goal, you know, a lot of times they’ll say today, they’ll say, each person has to determine what the goal of their life is. Well, then what’s going to be a lot of missed, you know, a lot of big mistakes, a lot of people are going to find out way too late, because we’re pretty stupid a lot of times, and we can be easily manipulated. The Lord tells us why we were created. We were created for union with Him, He who loves us and wants to share His glory, His happiness with us, but He gives us the dignity of freedom, of being able to freely choose Him, in His will, and that’s where we encounter our joy. Our joy is in union with Him, and that’s the example we see, for instance, in our Blessed Mother and all the saints. In that same message about true obedience, He said, “obedience is an offering of love,” not of coercion, of force, but is an offering of love. “True obedience is freedom,” he says, “because it leads to the fulfillment of the will of the Father, which is only love and goodness for His creatures, for His children.” And so today we consider that in families and family relations. And so I’m going to be looking at a passage from the Catechism. If you want to see it, it’s where the Catechism is considering the fourth, the fourth commandment about honoring your father and mother. And so one of the things that I think is very impressive about this passage is the sense of balance, and we’ll see that as we look through it. And so it says that “this commandment to honor your father and mother is not just limited to relations with one’s parents, but it has a wider application. It’s to honor and respect all those whom God for our good, has vested with His authority,” and to all the legitimate authorities. And it speaks, you know, that’s the command, the first commandment that speaks of a reward. Because this obedience, this true, authentic obedience, has both spiritual fruits, but also temporal fruits of peace and prosperity, the Catechism says, “Respect towards parents fills the home with light and warmth,” so how much grace the family feels when there is this respect. And failure to respect, it brings great harm to communities and to individuals.” So the Catechism is then going to talk, first of all, about the duties of children, and then it’s going to talk about the duties of parents. It says, “respect for parents, which is also called filial piety, derives from gratitude towards those who by the gift,” and it says three things, “the gift of life, of their love and of their work have brought their children into the world and enabled them to grow.” And here again, there’s three things – “enabled them to grow in stature,” that is, grow physically, “in wisdom,” that is, grow humanly, morally, “and grace,” grow spiritually. And then speaking of the duty, then to honor parents, it talks about three different aspects of this honor, and the first is obedience. “Filial respect is shown by true docility and obedience.” And so now it’s going to speak concretely about that obedience – “as long as the child lives at home with his parents.” So that’s when this obligation of obedience is, as long as the child lives at home with his parents, “the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him,” but it adds two conditions, “when it is for his good or that of the family.” So all that the parents ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family. “But if a child is convinced in conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order he must not obey”. So that’s the first duty, to obey. The second duty is to respect. It says, “obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children,” when the children are no longer living at home, dependent on their parents. So that’s the end of obedience – “but not so respect, which is always owed to them. As they grow up, children should continue to respect their parents. They should anticipate their wishes, willingly seek their advice and accept their just admonitions.” So that’s the duty of respect, which continues. And then it speaks of a third one, the duty to help. “This reminds grown children of their responsibilities towards their parents. As much as they can, they must give them material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness or distress.” So those three duties of obedience, respect and help of the children towards the parents. And then it talks of the duties of the of parents. It says this, “the duties of parents cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but also their moral education and their spiritual formation. Parents must regard their children as children of God.” So recognize the children belong, first of all to God. “And respect them as human persons, showing themselves,” that is, the parents showing themselves, “obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.” That is, the parents don’t have authority to just impose their own selfish will, but they are to be stewards, an instrument of God’s will. They are themselves to be obedient to the Father. And so there’s a good section here on the virtues that the parents should teach the children, which I won’t go into that now, for lack of time, it’s paragraphs 20 through 23. But then it says, “through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child’s earliest years, as the children grow up to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom.” So the parents, and that’s challenging, to gradually help the child take on more freedom and responsibility. And then the final section we’ll look at today is about vocations. And again, I think today it’s again, it’s a good example of balance. “When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life.” So that’s a right and a duty of the children, of each person. “They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly ask and receiving their advice and counsel.”  So that it’s each person’s responsibility to make that decision, but they should also be open to the advice of their parents. “Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children, either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them, quite the contrary, from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family.” So parents should give advice, but then each person has to make the decision, and then it says, and this relates to the gospel today, “family ties are important, but not absolute. Just as the child grows to maturity in human and spiritual autonomy, so his unique vocation, which comes from God, asserts itself more clearly and forcefully. Parents should respect this call.” That’s very important, because sometimes parents squash, oppose and squash the call. “Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it. They must be convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus,” and that quotes the gospel, ‘he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.’ “Parents should welcome and respect with joy and thanksgiving the Lord’s call to one of their children to follow Him in virginity, for the sake of the kingdom, in the consecrated life, or in the priestly ministry.” So all that’s part of the reflection in the Catechism on the fourth commandment. And so just to conclude, on this feast of the Holy Family, the Holy Family gives us the example. And all of us have fallen short in our family duties. So this is a day both to humbly recognize the ways that we have fallen short, but to turn to God with trust and see what can guide us. Obedience to God is our guide. It leads us to the fulfillment of our human life and live when we live that obedience to God and it be a proper obedience to human authorities in families, it brings many blessings to the families. So all of us in whatever situation we are, can be blessed by obeying God, in families and in all our life, which can heal and correct the mistakes we’ve made. And as scripture says, “make all things new.” Obedience to God can bring graces of healing and renewal to our lives and our world. And so today, with the Holy Family, let us discover the blessings of obedience to God. Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Luke 2:41-52