4th Sunday - The Holy Family Calls Us to Save the Family

Advent Sermons and Petitions

The Holy Family Calls Us to Save the Family

Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 23, 2007):

Today’s gospel explains how the Holy Family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus began.  Although Mary, through the Holy Spirit, was to conceive the Messiah, Joseph was chosen to be her spouse. Perhaps he was selected in order to protect her from public criticism. Undoubtedly he was needed to assure that Jesus benefited from the presence of a father. 

The Catholic Church has long taught that the family is the basic social unit or building block of society.  The family is a God-given institution that enjoys rights and privileges and must be protected.  Today, it is not difficult to see that the family, as an institution, is under severe stress.  The divorce rate in the United States has nearly reached 50% of marriages.  More and more people are living together even without a civil marriage to protect their relationship and family.  With increasing work and social commitments outside the home, families gather less and less around the table to share the evening meal, and children frequently leave home for good after high school. 

Saving our families from disaster is an enormous challenge.  Today I want to address only one aspect.  Throughout our country’s history, we have developed laws to protect the family.  During the Clinton presidency, laws were adopted to establish family leave to allow parents to spend valuable time with their new born children or to care for an ill child or parent.  And various laws were enacted to expand health care to poor children.  And in the 1980s and 1990s laws were passed to protect victims of domestic violence.

In 1964 Congress passed legislation to facilitate the integration of immigrant families by making it easier for immigrants who were legal residents here to sponsor their family members abroad and thus bring them into the United States.  This legislation fostered family unity, and many immigrant families took advantage of it, bringing their parents and siblings to join them here.

Unfortunately, recent immigration legislation is having the opposite effect; namely, it is dividing or separating families.  In 2001, the American and Mexican bishops in a joint pastoral letter wrote: “We are troubled by how the current amalgamation of immigration laws, policies and actions pursued by both the American and Mexican governments often impedes family unity.”

The bishops noted: The American “immigration system places per-country limits on visas for family members of U.S. legal permanent residents from Mexico.  This cap, along with processing delays,” they say, “has resulted in unacceptable waiting times for the legal reunification of a husband and wife, or of a parent and child.  For example, the spouse or child of a Mexican-born legal permanent resident can wait approximately 8 years or more to obtain a visa to join loved ones in the United States.  Spouses and parents thus face a difficult decision: either honor their moral commitment to family and migrate to the United States without proper documentation, or wait in the system and face indefinite separation from loved ones.  This is an unacceptable choice and a policy that encourages undocumented migration.” 

Let me give you an another example: Earlier this year, a single mother of 5 children living in Minneapolis was arrested by immigration officials who waited in front of her house for her to come home from work.  They arrested, detained and deported her, separating her from her 5 children, all of whom were born in the United States.  The local parish quickly mobilized volunteers to look after the children.  This woman had lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years. She had separated from an abusive husband a few years ago, never committed any crime and has always worked. Yet this woman was torn from her children, one of whom has serious disabilities Imagine the sadness of this family on Christmas Day.  How can we possibly consider such as system as just?   We cannot; we must not.   This is the broken system that the bishops rightly criticize for dividing families.

In 2001, our bishops also stated that “in 1996, the U.S. Congress eviscerated due process rights for migrants with the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which authorizes detention and deportation of migrants for relatively minor offenses, even after they have served their sentences.” The bishops noted: “This law has caused the unjust separation of untold numbers of immigrant families,” and they urge Congress to make appropriate changes to protect the rights of due process of these immigrants.

In the last 15 years, approximately 75% of the immigrants to the United States have been Mexicans.  As far as we know, there has not been one terrorist among them.  On the contrary, the vast majority of these Mexican immigrants are Catholics with a strong commitment to family.  It is family first for them.  They love children and have many of them.  Mexicans have the largest size families of any ethnic group in the United States.  Unlike most American-born Catholics, they even extend their families to include compadres and comadres, that is, the sponsors or godparents of their children’s celebrations of the sacraments of baptism, First Communion and confirmation.  Their primary recreation is to gather with family.  Their children are reluctant to go away from home to attend school or move out of the house even after becoming adults.  They love their families and struggle to keep them united.  They make enormous sacrifices for their families, lending one another money in times of need, taking in visiting family members recently arrived from Mexico, and sending money back to their family in Mexico.

Last year, a Mexican woman and her 9-year daughter crossed the border illegally in an effort to join her husband and other 2 children in Chicago.  While walking nearly 100 miles through the desert, she scratched herself on a cactus and the wound became infected.  When she arrived at a parish in Chicago, the priest rushed her to an emergency room, where they decided that because of the gangrene that had set in, her leg had to be amputated.  Three hours after the operation, she died, leaving her husband and 3 children to struggle on without her. Immigrant families pay a great price as they try to stay together.  On average, approximately one person dies each trying to cross the Mexican border.

Hispanic immigrants are finding work in more and more communities across the United States.  An increasing number of Catholic parishes are finding Mexican or Hispanic immigrants among their members.  Most of the growth of the Catholic Church in our country is a result of the growth of Hispanic families.  If that growth continues at the current pace, it is estimated that Hispanics will constitute half of the Catholics in America by 2050.  We should not be shocked by this statistic, but overjoyed that our church is growing and that people with strong family values are joining our communities. 

The bishops call upon our parishes to welcome the immigrant.  They comment: “Many migrants, sensing rejection or indifference from Catholic communities, have sought solace outside the Church. They experience the sad fate of Jesus, recorded in St. John’s Gospel:  “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.” (John 1:11).  Pope John Paul II said in his World Migration Day message in 1993: “The families of migrants…should be able to find a homeland everywhere in the Church.”  The bishops urge our communities to “offer migrant families hospitality, not hostility, along their journey.”  They call upon local parishes “to help newcomers integrate in ways that are respectful, that celebrate their cultures, and that are responsive to their social needs, leading to a mutual enrichment of the local church.”  They bring many values which will enrich our church and our lives.

As we prepare for the most important family celebration of the year, let us thank God for the many blessings we have received through our families.  Let us recommit ourselves to strengthening our families and the families of immigrants so that they may truly be the domestic church, the Body of Christ in miniature, where love and peace reign, and understanding and forgiveness abound.  Let us pray for the many immigrants who are unable to celebrate this Christmas with their families because they are divide by borders. 

Intercessions

For all families in our country, that they may find love and understanding by following the teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

For all immigrant families divided and separated by unjust laws, that they may not lose hope but continue to struggle to maintain unity among their members.

For our Church, that it might always defend the rights of the family and especially of immigrant families.

For those suffering from depression as a result of deportation and expulsion from this country, that the Lord may turn their sorrows into joy.

For those who grieve the loss of beloved friends or family members who died crossing the border, may God grant them peace?