Be the Holy Family this Christmas

By Tom Rinkoski

	Tom Rinkoski

I am happy to announce that this Christmas our whole family will be together. Like the Three Wise men, they are converging on our apartment from far away. From three locations (Des Moines, Ithaca, N.Y., and Boston) they will mount the camels of the sky named Delta, Northwest, and American and journey to our place.

We will squeeze round our holiday table two great-grandparents, two grandparents, one pregnant couple, one engaged couple, a college student, one baby, memories of pets we left behind and lots of presence. Like it was for the Holy Family on that first Christmas, the inn will be too small for our holy family. We will bring stories from the past and hope for the future to our family altar.

All of us are called to be Holy Families this Christmas! The holiness in which we are called to participate does not consist of some pious picture. Getting my family to take any picture without contorted faces is more than a chore! We are holy not because we are perfect. We are holy because our family relationships are the place where God's grace can be seen, felt and tasted. We are Holy Families not because we are removed from reality, rather because we are full of it.

The Feast of the Incarnation, that is called Christmas, is a reminder that we live in a world rich with grace and abundant blessings. God has put us in the material world to gather more material. Holiness is not about perfection, but about dogged dedication and polite but firm pursuit.

Many years back, my dad gathered the remains of the old Super 8 movies of our family life and spun them like gold into VHS. Beginning with their wedding, the video wove together a string of birthdays, holidays, and summer vacations. Aunt Sylvia danced at my First Communion party, Uncle Tony played Santa with Italian spirit, and my mother dressed us to the nines for Easter.

Like Christmas, the family video is a story about the celebration of life and light. Christmas is not a magical statement that there is no hurt or pain in the world. Any woman who has given birth will tell you that. Christmas repositions light over darkness, life over death, hope over despair and dreams over weariness. That is the vocation of family life.

Christmas is not, therefore, for children. Ultimately it is for families. It is a reminder of the uniqueness of our vocation as the first church, as the ground of the Gospel message. Every Christmas we celebrate spousing, parenting, brothering, sistering, uncling, aunting, grandparenting in all their various forms and mutations. Whenever you gather with whoever your family members are to celebrate, it is never surprising to start hearing from angels, shepherds, innkeepers and wise men.

Make sure this Christmas you take some time to reflect on the holiness of your Holy Family. How do your smiles and stories express the importance of your family relationships? How have those smiles and stories been woven into your family prayer? Are your smiles and stories just about giving and receiving presents? What are the traditions and rituals you have inside your family life that allow you to glance backward, so you can move forward? What presents (presence) does your family need to open this Christmas, so that your common life is a celebration of being the Holy Family?

May this holyday and its surrounding days be rich and full of abundant blessings. May those blessings be inescapable - felt in every hug, touched in every joyful tear and heard in every laugh. May you be left with no where else to go. God bless us all - everyone!

(Rinkoski is parish Director of Religious Education at St. Augustine Church and Student Center in Gainesville, Fla. His e-mail address is tomrinkoski@yahoo.com.)