Fr Dexter Brereton, CSSp ThM STL
Luke 2: 22-40
Here is a story: Hannah is a parishioner of St Barth’s parish off Sheppard Avenue in Toronto. She is a devout Catholic who was happily married for about 20 years, before her husband died leaving her with seven children, six sons and one daughter. In my interactions with Hannah, she often expressed her doubts and her sense of inadequacy as a single parent, since, in her estimation, since the death of her husband, her children, one by one, by their lifestyle choices and by their marriages each abandoned the Catholic faith which she and her late husband tried to instill in them. I could understand what she meant. By nature Hannah was a very gentle and very loving woman and not given to a great deal of quarreling and confrontation. She sometimes expressed to me her worry that in religious matters she constantly allowed her children to ‘walk all over her.’
The most recent example was some time early last year when Eli, one of her younger sons got married to a Muslim girl. He was a gentlemanly, thoughtful young man, but did not have a particularly strong attachment to the Catholic faith and apparently decided with his girlfriend, that as a compromise, they would find a friendly Pentecostal pastor and get married, at a beautiful resort somewhere, rather than in a Catholic church. At the time she said to me: “Eli is not the first of my children to do this. In fact, three of my older boys all married outside the church, and everyone expected me to go along happily. I have always done my best to welcome my grandchildren and daughters-in-law as I was raised to do.” Somehow, the thought of yet another one of her offspring marrying outside the faith bothered her. I advised her to let the Holy Spirit lead her. Seek to make God happy before making people happy. She prayed over it for some time and when she was ready, as lovingly as she could, she let her son know how she felt. She told him lovingly but plainly that he was raised Catholic and he fully well knew what was expected of him in regard to marriage. She told him she would always love him and love his intended bride as if she were a daughter, and they had a right as adults to make their own decision. She on the other hand, also had her own rights and would carefully decide if she would attend the wedding. Well, as the great story-teller Paul Keens-Douglas would say “WHO TELL SHE DO THAT?” The kids were in an uproar! Mom is being weird…they said. The older boys called, their voices full of concern, asking if she was okay. She did go to the wedding and gave a lovely speech welcoming the girl into the family -nonetheless, the reverberations of “mom’s resistance” remained. People were expressing hurt. Fortunately, she was prepared for all this. She was warned that she would be blamed for single-handedly trying to destroy Eli’s marriage before it began, single-handedly responsible for rejecting his future wife and thus setting Muslim-Catholic relations back a thousand years.
Hannah smiled and held her ground. No one could ever accuse her of rejecting anyone, regardless of how she had felt in the past. Here was a gentle, loving, warm woman quietly stirring up a storm in her own family. Her story reminds me of today’s story of the Holy Family and especially of the old man Simeon’s prophecy about Jesus. This is what he says to Mary: “You see this child: he is destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is rejected – and a sword will pierce your own soul too – so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare.”In other words, Mary herself will not be untouched by the various reactions to the ministry of Jesus her son. In her blessedness, she will share everything with him – even in his pain and persecution.
I ask myself: Who would have thought that a little baby would bring so much trouble and be the source of so much controversy in the world? The details of the Christmas story: the good, humble couple, the wondrous star, the three wise men, the choir of angels, the adoring shepherds and the beautiful baby make it easy for many people today to dismiss the Christmas story as a ‘harmless children’s tale.’ The story of the baby Jesus is not a harmless tale meant only for children. There is love and joy, but there is also blood and suffering. In the words Simeon, the shadow of the cross falls across the life of the days-old infant. I think of Hannah herself, like the baby Jesus, ‘destined to be a sign that is rejected’, even within her own family.
St Luke makes it clear that right from the ‘get-go’ men and women are confronted with a choice to choose for or against Jesus. Conflict and controversy are in a sense etched into the very fabric of Christian existence. When Simeon speaks of Mary’s being as “destined to be a sign that is rejected” there are clearly reverberations of other Old and New Testament passages such as this one from Luke 12: 51 where Jesus says Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. Today, I pray in solidarity with all those followers of Jesus in their families among their friends and in their places of work who are “destined to be a sign that is rejected.” I pray that they are given the grace to understand that they are in company with Jesus who did not come to bring ‘peace’ on earth, but division. Amen.
