Holy Family Sunday

1) San Fran weather update

2) Environmentalist Pope Benedict says no to “gender ideology”:

The Creator helps Christians to understand our responsibility toward the earth. It is not simply our property to be exploited according to our interests and desires. Rather, it is a gift of the Creator.

However, concern for God’s creation cannot be limited to care for the natural environment– although that is certainly a part of it. Far more important is the Church’s mission to preserve the ecology of the human being, understood in the proper manner. The Church must teach clearly about the nature of the human person, to counteract the influence of secular ideologies that confuse and diminish human dignity. God created man and woman as complementary, and the Church demands that this order of creation be respected by promotion of marriage and family life.

3) Your servant’s Holy Family Sunday homily:

In the beginning, God created mankind. Then, in the fullness of time, He became man. In the beginning, He made man and woman to be a family. In the fullness of time, He became a member of a family.

In one way, the Holy Family is unique. Our Lady’s marriage with St. Joseph was completely chaste. They persevered as virgins together through their whole lives. They never had children together.

On the other hand, the Holy Family is like any family. God made the family a certain way, to be a communion of love. Our First Parents sinned, and things got confused. So God became man Himself to restore family life to the way it was originally meant to be.

The quiet, gentle, loving, pious life of the Holy Family gives us the perfect model of family life. Now, don’t get me wrong. There is plenty of room for individuality. There are as many good ways to have a good family as there are Christian families. Some families are louder than others. Every situation is unique. Things can get complicated in family life, and the Lord accompanies us through even the most difficult circumstances.

Just for the sake of clarity, though, let’s recall that God established the family according to the basic rules of nature. One would not usually think that it would be necessary to go over the fundamental characteristics of the family, but apparently there is some confusion out there on this matter.

In order to start a family, there has to be a marriage—a lifetime commitment, consummated by a conjugal embrace. And for there to be a marriage, dear brothers and sisters, there has to be a man and a woman.

I am not trying to insult your intelligence—I hope you realize that. None of us would think, probably, that this would need explaining. It is not necessary to explain things like: Dogs walk on four legs. Or: We eat by putting food in our mouths. Or: Boiling water is dangerously hot. These things are obvious. The birds and the bees, though, are apparently not obvious to everyone in some states.

Now, we all struggle with wanting to do things that we should not do. Some people struggle with wanting to do things that are unnatural. The people who fight to resist unnatural desires are quiet heroes who deserve our admiration and prayers.

But there is no such thing as a gay family, because there is no such thing as a gay marriage. The idea that gay marriage could be “legal” is laughable. It is not possible to legalize pig flight, because pigs cannot fly. The marriage of a man with a man or a woman with a woman cannot really be “legal,” because it is impossible. Marriage is a lifetime commitment between a man and a woman. This is how a family starts.

A woman cannot become a mother without a man, and a man cannot become a father without a woman. These days they have devised many unnatural procedures to bring about pregnancies through laboratory techniques. All of these techniques, though, involve a man and woman ultimately. This is the birds and the bees. It is the beautiful way God made things. If anybody has the intention of going to a clinic for help with making a baby, please see a priest first, so that you don’t wind up doing something you will regret.

So, dear brothers and sisters, let’s make sure we are clear on the man and woman thing, so no one can accuse us of misunderstanding the fundamentals. If they start putting us priests in jail for refusing to perform the charade they call gay marriage, well then I guess it will be time to get exercised. But in the meantime, let’s just pray hard and try to have a laugh over this gay-marriage nonsense.

The much more widespread problem is actually men and women having children without getting married. It is unfair to the children. Every child has the right to be born into a stable, committed family.

The man and woman part of marriage and family life is really just the beginning. It takes more than just one man and one woman to make a holy family. It takes the grace of the sacrament of matrimony. It takes the love of Christ and the intercession of His Mother. It takes steadiness and daily sacrifice. It takes a sense of humor. And it requires that we have the supernatural perspective. Having a supernatural perspective means keeping this in mind at all times: The Lord has put us all together for one fundamental reason, to help each other get to heaven.

This supernatural perspective on family life is crucial, because helping people get to heaven is not all fun and games. It is fun, and there’s no harm in the occasional friendly game every now and again. But helping people get to heaven means keeping everyone on the straight and narrow. And to help others stay on the straight and narrow, I first have to stay on the straight and narrow myself.

By becoming man, the good Lord has brought His holiness and grace into our family lives. He is with us at every step, constantly pouring out help from heaven to guide and strengthen us. If we stay close to Him, He will see us through every difficulty, and He will bless the lives of our families with peace and joy.