Homily

Few days have passed since Christmas and the liturgy brings us to Nazareth to meet Jesus' family. The Church seems to underline the need Jesus also had of a family, that is to be surrounded by the love and attentions of his dear ones. The Gospels, to tell the truth, give little room to Jesus' family life and report only few episodes of his childhood; they however project their light on the entire thirty years Jesus lived in Nazareth. The last sentence of the Gospel we heard is like a synthesis of it. Luke writes that Jesus “was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour” (Lk 2:51-52). These few words represent the thirty years of “hidden life” in Nazareth.
To us, people sick with ambiguous efficiency and questionable good deeds, the query immediately arises: why did Jesus live such a long time so secretly? Couldn't he have used those years, or at least most of them, in a more fruitful manner in announcing the Gospel, healing the sick, helping in short as much as was possible? But if we gave more attention to the Gospel, perhaps we would hear the answer: “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Mk 8:33). What is certain is that those thirty years make us understand the words of Paul even better: “He became like men;” Jesus lived in a family, like everyone else, as if to say that salvation is no stranger to the ordinary life of people. And perhaps for this reason the Church has deemed “apocryphal” all those stories created from the tender curiosity of the early Christians who wanted to make extraordinary and miraculous Jesus' childhood and adolescence.
From the Gospel we know that Jesus' life in Nazareth is marked by normality: there are no miracles or healings; preaching is not reported; there are no flocking crowds; everything happens “normally,” according to the customs of a pious Jewish family. Well, today's feast suggests that these years were holy. Jesus' family was an ordinary family, made up of people who lived from the work of their hands; they were not poor nor wealthy, maybe a little precarious. Without doubt, however, they were exemplary: they really loved one another, even though there were misunderstandings, rebukes and even corrections, as we can deduce from the episode of Jesus' being lost in the temple.
Certainly Joseph and Mary observed the religious traditions of Israel, and they felt the obligation of Jesus' education. They knew from Scripture: “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise” (Deut 6:6-7). It would be helpful to reflect on the religious traditions of a pious Jewish family in order to understand better the life of Jesus and of the family of Nazareth. We would be moved to know the prayers they said in the morning and in the evening; we would be edified to learn how teenager Jesus dealt with his first religious and civil appointments, and how as a young artisan he worked with Joseph; and then his commitment to listening to the Scriptures, the Psalms and many other customs. And how much Moms could learn from Mary's solicitude for her son! How much Dads could get from the example of Joseph, a just man, who devoted his life to support and defend, not himself, but the child and the woman!
However, there is a depth in that family, which remained hidden from the eyes of his contemporaries, but that is revealed to us by the Gospel: it is the “centrality” of Jesus in the family; the evangelist notes: “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.” This is the “treasure” of the “hidden life”: Mary and Joseph had welcomed their Son; they guarded him and saw him growing among them, even more in their hearts, and their love and understanding grew with it. This is why the Family of Nazareth is holy and in this it also shows to our families the way of holiness. We need Jesus to grow in our hearts and in our lives and within the human story. Jesus still has to grow into the lives of families, in our society and in our own heart.
In this context, we can insert the story of Simeon and Anna - an episode rich with many meanings. In a way, gathering together the Gospel scenes of childhood, they complete Jesus' family. We could say that they are its older members. In their old age, Simeon and Anna welcome the child and are transfigured by him. Simeon is full of consolation and considers himself full of days; Anna begins to speak about the child to all those she meets, finding in this way a second youth. One feels the Lord grow in his heart and the other makes Jesus grow in the hearts of those who listen to her.
When we receive the Gospel and let it grow, life rejuvenates, resumes force and bears fruit. The same happened in the other family mentioned in the liturgy: the family of Abraham. “Abram believed the Lord” - writes the book of Genesis, and also in the Letter to the Hebrews - he welcomed the Lord in his life and became the father of believers. His faith was powerful, stronger than Sarah's sceptical laugh, to the point that it defeated her sterility; through the faith of Abraham, the elderly and resigned Sarah conceived the son of the Messiah's lineage.
Nazareth, the peripheral village of Galilee and the place of the ordinary life of the Holy Family, represents the entire life of the disciple who, in fact, receives, holds and nurtures the Lord. Then it is not just a coincidence that “Nazareth” means “She who holds”: Nazareth is Mary, who “kept all these things in her heart;” and it is the homeland and the vocation of every disciple even if the world continues to say: “Can anything good ever come from Nazareth?”