One of the most controversial topics in New Testament interpretation today is St. Paul's statement, found in the long form of this Sunday's Second Reading, "Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord" (Colossians 3:18). Many would prefer not to discuss the passage at all. Oftentimes the short from of the reading is used at Mass to exclude this line. But precisely because the passage is so controversial, we should talk about it.
Discussions of the passage often neglect the context. The next line reads, "Husbands, love your wives" (Colossians 3:19). In our contemporary culture, the word "love" has been greatly weakened and has often been reduced to little more than being nice. But the New Testament concept of love is much more substantial. To love means to act in a Christ-like manner. Christ showed love by giving himself fully, even at the cost if his own life.
Indeed, in the parallel passage to this one from his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her" (Ephesians 5:25). How did Christ love the Church? He did so to the point of allowing himself to be crucified for her. In the Pauline vision, the central image of the ideal husband is that of Christ submitting even to crucifixion. So if we are going to talk about a wife being submissive to her husband, we should also discuss the husband loving his wife even to the point of being willing to be crucified for her. That would give us a more complete picture.
In contemporary Western culture, the Pauline vision of marriage has often been dismissed as irrelevant or, on the flip side, has often been interpreted as a sort of caveman caricature, giving license to men to be domineering tyrants over their wives. But St. Paul's vision of marriage is that of mutual sacrificial self-giving for each other, where each is seeking the good of the other.
The Second Reading for this Sunday also touches on the relationship between children and their fathers. The biblical concept of authority is that those in leadership over others should exercise their power for the benefit of those whom they lead. Thus, authority should never be self-serving or self-reverential, but should always be about pouring out ourselves for others. Thus, the Pope, who is the leader and spiritual father of the whole church, is referred to as the Servant of the Servants of God.
In the Gospel Reading for this Sunday, we see St. Joseph engaged in self-giving leadership. When Jesus, his foster son, is threatened, Joseph flees with his family, evading the soldiers to seek shelter in a foreign land, Egypt. There he has to start a whole new life, overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers in order to provide for them. When Herod dies and the threat is removed, Joseph moves the family back to the Holy Land, finding a spot that is outside of the reach of Herod's successor. (On a side note, today, pilgrims can visit the neighborhood in Cairo where the Holy Family is believed to have resided during their sojourn in Egypt.)
If Joseph had been a sinful man, he might not have gone through all this hardship to protect his family. He might well have traded Jesus for comfort and safety for himself. But Joseph was holy and he recognized that authority confers responsibility. For him to love and care for Jesus and Mary meant that he had to upend his own life completely in order to serve them, protect them, and provide for them. Those of us who have been entrusted with the care of others should reflect on how well our actions mirror those of Joseph. Do we compromise the well-being those entrusted to us for the sake of our comfort and ease? Or are we willing to give of ourselves even at great personal cost for the benefit of those we are meant to serve through leadership?
As we reflect on the nature of true love, the primary image for us is the Holy Trinity. God is love - infinite, boundless, eternal love. Love is never solitary. Love requires an exchange, a dynamic of self-giving. Thus, in the Holy Trinity, there are Three Persons, who, as our faith teaches us, are fully one and yet still distinct - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is the One Who Loves, the Son is the Beloved who receives the love of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the love dynamic between the two. God by his very nature is eternally, infinitely self-giving love. Thus, to be like God, we are to give of ourselves sacrificially.
Leo Tolstoy famously said at the start of his novel Anna Karenina that "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Happy families are happy because they are like the Holy Family, which mirrored the boundless self-giving love of the Holy Trinity. Trinitarian self-giving love is at the heart of a happy family home. Happy families, furthermore, are at the heart of a healthy, well-functioning society. Thus, for society to thrive, the foundation must be eternal, boundless self-giving Trinitarian love.
As we seek to emulate the self-sacrificial love of Christ, one caution is needed with regard to romantic relationships. When it comes to romance, true self-sacrificial love will only work when it goes both ways. If one person gives and gives and the other only takes, the relationship becomes abusive. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. For a romantic relationship to be healthy, both sides need to pour themselves out sacrificially.
Reflecting on the feast of the Holy Family this Sunday, we should also remember that the concept of family at the time of Jesus, as in many cultures still today, entailed an extended network of family members. In Western culture today, we tend to think of family as the nuclear family, consisting of just the parents and any children they might have. But traditionally, a family has been seen as a clan of a large group of family members whose lives are deeply interwoven.
When Jospeh and the Virgin Mary traveled to Bethlehem for the census, they had to leave their extended family behind. They had to go alone again when they fled to Egypt with Jesus. But when they were back in Galilee, they were surrounded by extended family, which we see glimpses of in different parts of the Gospels. As we seek to emulate the Holy Family on this feast day, let us remember the traditional view of family. If we are not in touch with our extended families, we should seek out those connections, as much as possible.
But perhaps we do not have extended family anywhere near to us or any who are still alive. Or perhaps connection with them is not possible for a variety of reasons. If that is the case, we should also remember what Jesus said about the Church. As Christians, we are to be family for each other. We are to love each other as if we were blood relations. We are to give of ourselves for each other sacrificially as we would for our birth family.
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Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Cycle A, are:
Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14
Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5
Colossians 3:12-21 or 3:12-17
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: Igreja São João em Porto Alegre, Brasil : Vitral Sagrada Família from Wikimedia Commons.
