After listening to the second reading this weekend and experiencing the negative reaction that the women in the first three rows of church had during one sentence of this reading, I decided to change the focus of my original homily altogether. The sentence which caused the harmony of groans comes from the long version of today’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians:

Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Mujeres, respeten la autoridad de sus maridos, como lo quiere el Señor. – Col 3: 18 (see also Eph 5: 22; Ti 2: 56; 1 Pt 3:1)

Aaaargh!

The text is not an isolated one; you can find this particular passage in other epistles of the New Testament, from Ephesians to Titus to the First Letter of Peter. Various individuals of the male gender might use this text as some type of proof of their superiority in the world. I always have problems with this particular argument, since many have taken passages from the bible out of context in order to defend a point that has no validity. “A reading from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. Wives, be subordinate to your husbands. The Word of the Lord.”

The problem I have with a more “machismo” rendering of this text is that the second part of this reading is even more demanding than the first:

Husbands, love your wives and avoid any bitterness towards them.

Maridos, amen a sus esposas y no sean rudos con ellas.

If I am correct, the word that this particular reading uses for the word “love” is agape, which causes a great deal of trouble for those who might understand the traditional Catholic understanding of this particular word. The problem with the English language is that one can use the same word “love” to apply both to a piece of chocolate cake as much as to one’s affection of another person. The Spanish language handles this dilemma a little better, differentiating a like (amar) of a friend to a love (querer) for someone’s spouse.

In the Greek language in which this text is written, the word agape means so much more than just to love an individual as one person like a spouse. In more traditional Catholic belief, the word agape connotes a type of unconditional love where a man is willing to sacrifice his very life for the protection of the family that he loves. In the sacred liturgy, the agape meal can be understood as a type of “death feast” that precedes one’s sacrifice for the sake of another.

In short, a man who commits to this type of love puts the welfare of his wife, children, and family ahead of his own life and lives the type of service similar to that of the bridegroom Christ on the cross for his bride, the Church. In short, the husband has the worse end of this deal in this particular interpretations of Colossians, if someone wishes to take this analogy to its logical end.

This theme of sacrifice for the sake of family is very much prevalent in today’s scripture readings as well, especially in the Cycle A readings on which we focus this year. The theme for the Cycle A version of the Holy Family is based on the Gospel of Matthew, a text which focuses on Jesus inheriting the Jewish birthright from his father Joseph. In this understanding of fatherhood, the father becomes responsibility to pass on the heritage of God’s chosen people to his eldest son, thus connecting the salvific work of the divine to the family to which he has been commissioned to serve. Notice in today’s gospel reading that St. Joseph made a difficult choice in his life to accept a teenaged pregnant woman into his life with whom he had had no relations, although his natural inclination was to divorce her quietly. Because of the intercession of an angel, Joseph not only chose to accept this woman into his life but committed himself to raise a child that was not of his choosing and raise this child as if he were his first-born.

This theme is extremely important for our salvation. Because Joseph accepted this child into his life, he literally adopted this son into his Jewish heritage, allowing the baby to fall into the lineage of David, Moses and Abraham. Because of this adoption, the baby Jesus, the Christ-king, was able to assume the life of the faithful Jew, assume their sinful nature of the chosen people as well, and to pay the price for this sinful nature on the cross, on behalf of the entire Jewish race. Without Joseph’s sacrifice, we have no connection to the Chosen People, according to Matthew’s rendering of the story. Without this connection, the Chosen People might very well be separated from God to this day.

In today’s age, this type of sacrifice in the family takes many forms as well. Some time ago, I met a father with four children who was lamenting to me about the sacrifices he had made in life. He confided in me that his sacrifice was found within his occupation and a very demanding boss who would not give him any slack. The boss was very rude towards this man, who wanted to respond back in kind but was too concerned about the welfare of his family to risk losing his job. Whether his response to this situation was appropriate or not might be a subject for another conversation, but the father’s intent to sacrifice his life for the sake of the family is a most noble one, an intent that all of us might strive to embrace if we are to follow the path of Christ.

Pope John Paul II had an interesting take on the role of the parent in the life of the family. As part of the life of sacrifice, as part of the live of service and prayer, our Holy Father understands the life of the parent to be one of a missionary, something that we might attribute to a religious vocation who ministers in Africa, Asia or parts of Latin America. Our Holy Father writes,

(Parents,) Yours is a commitment that well deserves the title of mission, so noble are the aims that it pursues, and so determining, for the good of society and the Christian community itself, are the results that derive from it... All that you succeed in doing to support the family is destined to have an effectiveness that goes beyond its own sphere and reaches other people too and has an effect on society The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family.

– Familiaris Consortio #75 (The Church at the Service of the Family); see also Pope John Paul II’s address to The Confederation of Family Advisory Bureaus of Christian Inspiration.

El vuestro es un compromiso que bien merece la calificación de misión, por lo noble que son las finalidades que persigue, y determinantes para el bien de la sociedad y de la misma comunidad cristiana los resultados que derivan de ellas... Todo lo que consigáis hacer en apoyo de la familia está destinado a tener una eficacia que, sobrepasando su ámbito, alcanza también otras personas e incide sobre la sociedad. El futuro del mundo y de la Iglesia pasa a través de la familia.

Upon my own reflection of our Holy Father’s view of the family, he is right: the parent who commits their lives for the sake of their spouse and the children under their care is living the life of the missionary. To care for a vulnerable lamb who does not have the ability to direct themselves to the life of the divine without help, it is our challenge to direct their lives in that direction. We made that promise at each child’s baptism. We promised that we would rear these children as Catholics in order to teach them the way of God and to live that life in the home. For the Catholic parent who takes this responsibility seriously, who realizes that their sacrifice will pave the way for the child to reach heaven, it is that parent who understands the traditional understanding of this agape, this total, unconditional love, that Christ reflects on that cross and within our own faith lives.

As we honor today this most Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus, may we pay fitting service to what they have done in the things that we do ourselves, both husband and wife, brothers and sisters. May we live the life of the Christian, very much sacrifice our lives for the sake of our children, and share this love with the people that we meet.

This is our prayer.