A Not so Perfect Family becomes Perfect

God established the family when He commanded Adam and Eve to live happily ever after and procreate. Of course, the happily ever after part didn't last very long. From the moment they ate the forbidden fruit, they doomed the family from being happy for generations to come. Even their own son, Cain, was less than perfect. He was jealous, envious, and killed his brother Abel. If the very first family was so imperfect, why should we expect ours to be so perfect?

All of us are born into a family. We do not get to choose our family. We may land in a very large family or in a very small one. We may get lucky with a set of loving parents or we may end up with parents that don't give a hoot about us. We may have one sibling, a lot of siblings or none at all. We may get along with them or we may fight constantly. Maybe we have grandparents that are very much a part of our lives or maybe we didn't even get to meet our grandparents. We may have aunts, uncles, cousins or none of the above.

Jesus was also born in a family. He could have arrived on earth with a lot of fanfare, surrounded by angels, with trumpets blaring, and dressed in luxurious garments. Instead, He came as a baby. A poor baby who didn't even have a place to be born. He was born in a stable amidst the barn animals and with a manger for a crib. And there, in a little town known as Bethlehem, the Holy Family was established. The Holy Family is always portrayed as Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Was His family perfect? Probably more perfect than ours but I'm pretty certain that family life was sprinkled with the usual problems that every family faces. Mary did the usual things a wife and mother did: cook, iron, clean, wash the clothing, go to the market... And at the end of the day, she was probably tired because she was human. Joseph worked as a carpenter and therefore took care of all the usual repairs and maintenance that a household requires. And Jesus probably had chores around the house and when He got older, He helped Joseph in His trade. They were a normal family in Nazareth. And they left us a perfect model to follow.

The clue to becoming a perfect family modeled after the Holy Family is to welcome Jesus into our homes. Just like Joseph and Mary made room for Jesus in their lives, if we make room for Jesus in ours, our family will be almost perfect. We need to welcome Him, speak to Him, listen to Him, take care of Him, love Him, protect Him and make Him the center of our family. Even with Jesus in our midst, our family will not be perfect because we are human. But if we model the first family instead of the Holy Family, then it will be a disaster.

Let us make room for Jesus and allow Him to be welcomed in the heart of every member: father, mother, son, daughter, grandparents... And then maybe, just maybe, our not so perfect family will start to become perfect.