That Family Smell
Feast of Holy Family 12/29/19 Sir3:2,Col3:12,Lk2:22-40 J MayzikSJ
I visited my sister and her family up in Vermont these last two days. I was able to get there late on Christmas day—a rarity because I usually have to stick around for Masses at the church for 2 or 3 days after Christmas. It was great being with them—my sister and her husband, my three nieces, and their rescue dog Yogi. And there was lots of snow up there, so I had my dream of a white Christmas
Did you ever notice, every family has a particular, maybe sometimes a peculiar smell to it? Whenever I enter my sister’s family home the first thing that hits me is the smell of them. It's hard to describe the particular smells of a particular family, the only thing you can say is, it smells like, like, well, like the Mayziks or the Prentices, or it smells like the Antonucci's, or the Lynch's, the Rojansky's. It's a collective smell of the family that hits you when you enter their home territory, some more pleasant than others. I'd like to be a dog for a while. I’ll bet their sense of smell really makes the family experience very rich. I wonder what Jesus and Joseph and Mary smelled like together, you know?
At Christmas, we are more aware than ever of our families. They are the first thing that come to mind as we approach this season. All throughout this last week, all the cars on the road were filled with families, packages of food and presents wedged around them, on the window sills, there was rarely a car with just one person in it. In church on Christmas, all these families, all the little kids, all together. Christmas without family seems odd, and somehow sad.
The word family is one of the richest in our language. We use it to mean many different things, many kinds of relationships, many degrees of kinship, both distant and intimate. The word comes from its root Latin word famulus, which means ‘servant’. In every human relationship described by the word ‘family’ there is always the implication or hint that the people in that family serve one another. They support each other, nourish each other, protect each other, encourage each other, love each other. To be ‘family’ to someone means, in the end, to serve them in love. And sometimes it hurts to give that kind of service, especially if you have to let them go to live out their dream. That is true for our sons and daughters, but also for our mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and all our relatives. It is also true for our friends and our neighbors and even the strangers all around us, who Jesus dreamed for us, are also our family. The creator of human beings became a human being to unite us all together in the most intimate and inclusive family ever known in human history.
And so it is appropriate that we celebrate this feast of the Holy family within the shadow of Christmas. A whole day the Church sets aside to turn our attention to the smell of the Holy Family of Jesus and Joseph and Mary. This is a family much like our own, smells and all, customs and traditions and habits like our own. Think of a day in the life of this family. It begins, proceeds and ends just like ours. Someone's feet hitting the floor first, wearily reaching to put the coffee on, to get the house warmed up for another day. The routine in the bathroom---who's slowest, who leaves the toothpaste uncapped, who forgets to flush. At breakfast, one is a morning person, one is Mr or Mrs Grumpy. Then, off to school, off to work, with a kiss, and maybe a thought, a prayer, thank you God for this family, and each to their own chores and tasks of the day. At nightfall, the reverse, the coming home to the smells and the food. Who's cooking, who's washing the dishes. The conversation over supper, the day's arguments recounted. Then, to bed, who stays up late, who falls asleep in the easy chair, exhausted. Kisses goodnight, all around, and the security of knowing, each and every one, that you've made it through another day together, and for that alone, this day has been blessed and holy. This, your family and your routine, this, the same for Jesus, Joseph and Mary. We are like them, they like us, and there is holiness, blessedness in our families.
Years ago, on a snowy New Year's Eve, my family was on the road in the dark of night, enveloped in a New Hampshire blizzard. We had been traveling for hours and had long ago exhausted the distractions of car games. My sister and I started to fight and my mother told us to stop. She was having trouble making out the map of New Hampshire, and when we got lost again on a dark and deserted road, she complained that my father was too proud and too stubborn to stop and ask for directions, and they started to fight. We were in the middle of nowhere, we didn't have much gas left, and the car was slipping and sliding as we inched our way towards any place we could find to stay that night. The car started to shudder, the engine got rough and then coughed to a complete stop. We were out of gas. It was scary. There was silence in the car for a moment, and then my father said, "Don't worry, we'll be alright," but I wasn't sure I believed him. There was a gust of wind that shook the car, and the snow parted like curtains for a moment, and then I saw it. It was a little light down the road. My father got out to follow the apparition, and disappeared into the darkness. A few minutes later he was back, and there was a man with him, the man who owned the little motel just down the road, the motel whose light I had seen through the snow.
We abandoned the car and before we knew it we were in the warmest, nicest little motel you could imagine. We turned on the tv, and we had forgotten—it was New Year's Eve—and the ball was almost ready to drop. Suddenly my father left the room and went outside into the swirling snow. He returned a minute later with a big smile on his face and two hubcaps and a tire iron from our car. And then, just like we did every New Year's with pots and pans from the kitchen, we rang in the new year clanging on the hubcaps, bang bang Happy New Year, bang bang bang Happy New Year! We banged that New Year in together, our family, in a strange place, on the road, one snowy night. I remember going to sleep in my motel bed never more thankful for my parents, and even my sister.
No matter how difficult the journeys of our family, in the end, there is always God's love in the middle of it all, holding it together, protecting it, showing us how to grow together and live within that love. As we approach a new decade in just a few days, as we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family today, let us listen to St Paul's wonderful words for our family life—mothers and fathers, children, sisters and brothers: "Put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. Teach and correct one another. Over all these put on love, let the peace of Christ control your hearts.”
And finally, and most importantly...be thankful. We are given so much love. Be thankful especially, for the love of your holy family.
