Camino: December 17th
|By Fr Gerry Shaughnessy:
A popular programme on British TV is “Who do You Think You are?”; it is a very simple format where a celebrity delves into their family history and discovers all kinds of interesting, sometime salacious material on their ancestors. Through Church and civic records, they can go right back and discover their origins and genealogy.
My cousin, John Healy has done my own family a great service by recording our history and he discovered a great, great, great uncle recorded in the 1901 census as an ‘imbecile’; he may have been a little different or slow, but we have no memories or other records of this hidden ‘Uncle Patrick’--not even an account of his death, but I pray that he is happy with the Lord.
Matthew today presents the genealogy of Jesus; conscious of his Jewish audience, he begins with Abraham and ends with Jesus, while a more inclusive Luke begins his family tree with Jesus and traces him back to “…son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God” (Lk 3:38). Our Gospel today is taken from the very beginning of Matthew’s account: he is proclaiming who Jesus is. ‘Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham’ (Matt 1: 1).
I must be honest, in my last parish where I worked with two fine Deacons, I was always praying that Deacon Michael or Deacon Fidelis would be able to proclaim the gospel on 17th December as some of the Hebrew names are real tongue twisters! However, more importantly this opening chapter grounds Jesus in a human reality. Unusually, Mathew mentions five women in the lineage—some of whom were involved in irregular relationships, as were many of the men in the list. The family tree of Jesus is complicated and real. We are not called to judge, rather we embrace the good and bad that gave us the gift of Jesus, our Wisdom; Jesus was part of a family that embraced the very good and those we would rather hide away and forget.
When you read the stories of the first four women—and of the men on the list—we do not focus on their sin, but on the grace of God. The hero of this story is God. His grace shines through the blackest of human sin as he chooses flawed men and women and places them in Jesus’ family tree.
Today: tell a story from your childhood to a younger family member or friend
We can pray:
Lord, I thank you for my heritage and my family history. Bless all my family, living and dead; may I play my full part and never discredit my family name. Today, Lord, bless us especially with your wisdom. AMEN