I’ll start today with a little story that may be familiar but please indulge me. The is the story of the “Conversion of the Men of Roaring Camp” first published in 1868 by Bret Harte. Roaring Camp was a group of gruff, hard drinking, fierce, gold diggers who sure did not practice Benedictine radical hospitality! However it happened that one day a pregnant Native American lady stumbled into the camp. She was obviously in late-stage labor. Thankfully, two of the men were decent enough to try to help her. Miraculously the child survived but the mother unfortunately died. Now, deaths were quite common in Roaring Camp, but a birth was something completely new. The men of the camp took responsibility for the baby and decided to build him a clean cabin. They even put in windows with lace curtains. He was their baby and they were determined to give him a proper home and bringing up. The men took turns taking care of the baby. Holding him and singing to him was considered a privilege. They demanded from each other previously unheard-of things such as decent language, quiet, cleanliness and moral order. The men began to shed their own roughness, their anger and their selfishness. The little child transformed this outpost of rough, crude miners into a community of generosity, tenderness and compassion. The baby called forth from these reckless characters dignity, their worth and sense of beauty, wonder and joy.
Children will do that to you and for you. Many young couples refine their lifestyles when a baby comes. They want the baby to be brought up with the best they have, by being the best people they can be. These men wanted their baby to grow up with a real loving relationship with God and as a part of a worshiping community. Children often bring out the best in their parents and lead them to search for an open, hospitable faith community. Afterall this is what God has done for us through the birth of His son. With Jesus’ birth, our humanity is made sacred. He has called us from living self-centered lives to a style of living that speaks by their actions of compassion, peace and joy. Jesus Christ has transformed humanity, making humanity sacred, just as He is sacred.
So what’s a story about these rough characters got to do with us? Well, the presence of the baby transformed the rough men from being self-centered to being self-less. In a sense, the baby called forth those men to holiness and formed them into a family. That’s what we pray for on the Feast of the Holy Family. We pray that we, each and all, may hear the cries of the Infant Jesus, calling us to reverence His presence in each other. We are being called to holiness that is the heart of the Catholic family.
What are celebrating that the God who created the institution of “family”, despite any shortcomings, chose to transform it through the Incarnation and make it one of the ways by which he saved us. We can learn from the example of the Holy Family that, despite all our failures and difficulties, that we too are called to become ‘holy’ through living out God’s word in the midst of our families.
Let us then today, celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family asking God’s blessings on our own families and our community. Let us go into the New Year, the Jubilee Year of Hope, strengthened by Pope Francis’ message of hope for a better world: Let our lives say to the world “Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!”
~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB
Happy New Year! Peace to all!
