Fr. Penna’s Homily for the Opening of the Jubilee Year of Hope were based on the following text of Bishop Mark’s reflections:
Feast of the HOLY FAMILY: Dec. 29, 2024 Opening of the JUBILEE YEAR
Readings For the Feast:
Sirach 3:2-6 For the Lord honors a father above his children, and he confirms a mother’s right over her children. 3 Those who honor their father atone for sins, 4 and those who respect their mother are like those who lay up treasure. 5 Those who honor their father will have joy in their own children, and when they pray they will be heard. 6 Those who respect their father will have long life, and those who honor their mother obey the Lord; Sirach 3:12-14 My child, help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives; 13 even if his mind fails, be patient with him; because you have all your faculties do not despise him. 14 For kindness to a father will not be forgotten, and will be credited to you against your sins;
Colossians 3:12-17 12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Matthew 2:13-15 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” 19-23 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”
Intro:
“The hope of the world lies not in better human inventions, but in better human relations”
Today we gaze on the family, the Holy Family, for insight and inspiration on what it means to live in hope; through Deepening union with Jesus Christ; through strengthening and ‘good human relations’ as modeled by the Word Made Flesh, the EMMANUEL
- Image of the Manger Scene – building a house for God, with much lights, decoration, greenery, & beauty. But, you, O Israel …are His house!! We are His house.
Announcing the Jubilee 2025, Pope Francis stated: “We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and far-sighted vision.”
Pope Francis – with opening of the Holy Door: “Each of us can enter into the mystery of this proclamation of grace.” “This is the time when the door of hope has opened wide on the world; this is the time when God says to each one: There is hope for you too!”
Pope Francis – further words:
“Jesus, God-with-us, is born for you, for me, for us, for every man and woman. And, you know, with him joy flourishes, with him life changes, with him hope does not disappoint.”
“This is the season of hope in which we are invited to rediscover the joy of meeting the Lord … the Jubilee calls us to spiritual renewal and commits us to the transformation of our world, so that this year may truly become a time of jubilation.”“The Jubilee Year should be a time for every individual, and all peoples and nations … to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sound of arms and overcome divisions.”
The “Holy Family” and the launch of the Jubilee Year of HOPE
- Family is the first and most significant human community in any person’s life. It contributes
profoundly to who they are, and their experience of the larger human community.
The Family has a special place in the mystery of how God dwells with humanity, and how God saves us.
1) Family:
a. The Holy Trinity itself is a profound ‘family’ community of 3 persons
b. The “messy” reality into which place where the Messiah is born
c. Our essential reality for we do not come into the world as isolated individuals, but as members of a human community (otherwise, we would die quickly!)
a) FAMILY: the place & the home in which we dwell with God - Place of applied Christian life: “By what you say and do, we build up each other”
- Family is the place where we learn: we do not flourish at the expense of each other: rather, we flourish when we build up each other!!
b) The “Messiness of Family Life” – the context of FIRST & CONTINUAL LEARNING and the working out of DFFICULTY, even ANGUISH: - P. Francis: “Opening up to others, understanding the reasons of others: this attitude is important for healing compromised relationships among people, and it is also indispensable for healing open wounds within the family”
- Pope Francis entrusts broken families to the protection of the Holy Family of Nazareth and notes that even Mary and Joseph experienced anguish when they could not find Jesus during their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
“That anguish they felt in the three days of the loss of Jesus should also be our anguish
when we are far from Him, when we are far from Jesus. We should feel anguish when we forget about Jesus for more than three days, without praying, without reading the Gospel, without feeling the need for His presence and His consoling friendship,”
c) FAMILY is the place where we experience, learn, and are challenged by how we live well, live in hope together. Sirach teaches us: Laying up Treasure by how we treat our family members: our parents, our elders, the little ones.
d) Putting on Christ in the Jubilee Year – the Way of Living Hope:
“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another… forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. (Colossians 3)
As with My Lord Jesus, so with my brother or sister
As with my brother or sister, so with my family
As with my family, so with my friends and associates
As with my friends and associates, so with my community
As with my community, so with the stranger
As with the stranger, so with the world
As with the world, so with the Saviour Jesus Christ
- Family is not only the place where we experience Christian life, it is also the place where we practice the Christian life!! And so, family is the arena where we grow in our consistency and constancy as intimate friends of Christ
- Key issues:
a) Reverence & Respect as a pilgrim of [His] Hope.
b) Compassion: Walking & sharing with those we love the joys, challenges, and difficulties of life.
c) Forgiveness & Reconciliation;
• People we most often need to ask forgiveness from
• no family is perfect: need to forgive…
• remember the need we have to being reconciled with God, within ourselves: “…nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others, than being ill at ease with yourself.”
d) COMMITMENT – Pope Benedict spoke of the is a serious cultural crisis when it comes to “the human capacity to make a commitment,” the sort of commitments essential to true family life. The Son committed himself to the work of the Father and was born of Mary the Virgin. Mary committed herself to the word of God, trusting completely in the divine plan. Joseph committed himself to Mary and Jesus, obeying God despite the efforts it required.
And Jesus, on the Cross, cried out, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). Christ was willing to die for a lost family, bringing into being a new family, in which we can become authentically human.
e) VISION & HOPE: God’s desire for humanity, and his great love which takes him beyond the cross to the dawn of a new resurrection reality, is what inspires families & communities through difficulties & profound tragedies.
Application:
A word on dealing with human weakness and dysfunction in family:- i) Do not underestimate this, but also put it in perspective
ii) If family is the primary, first community, then family is the first place and best place where individual deficiencies will be manifest
iii) Which one of us can say “I have the perfect family”?
• Which one of us can say, “I am perfect”?
A) Accept that family will be the place where human difficulty and even weakness will become apparent (does not mean always accept weakness, especially in the case of serious matter which impacts individual dignity and well-being of members)
B) Family presents the setting and place for real self-discovery, growth and change, because it is the best place …and the toughest place…to face obstacles – in order to effect healing, and more beyond obstacles.
iv) impacts all of us, and throughout our lives …as children, teenagers, young adults, adults, and into our senior years.
Conclusion: Family is our first, God-given human community. God comes to us in the first human community: Jesus touches the heart of the human race as a member of a human family. This should give us great hints and clues about where we need to start, to effect true growth and build hope in the coming New Year!
- i) Do not underestimate this, but also put it in perspective
- Key issues:
Granting of the Indulgence for the Jubilee Year 2025: the occasion to experience
God’s MERCY as a Jubilee Grace:
Previously, in the Bull announcing the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015, Pope Francis underlined how the Indulgence acquired “an even more important meaning” in that context (Misericordiae vultus, 22), since God’s mercy becomes the “indulgence on the part of the Father who, through the Bride of Christ, his Church, reaches the pardoned sinner and frees him or her from every residue left by the consequences of sin” (ibid.). Similarly, now the Holy Father declares that the gift of the Indulgence “is a way of discovering the unlimited nature of God’s mercy. Not by chance, for the ancients, the terms ‘mercy’ and ‘indulgence’ were interchangeable, as expressions of the fullness of God’s forgiveness, which knows no bounds” (Spes non confundit, 23). The Indulgence, therefore, is a Jubilee grace.