GPS

Feast of the Holy Family
Luke 2:22-35
December 28, 2009

Melway 2009 Edition
I hope we are all happy with the Christmas gifts we received from our loved ones.

On Boxing Day I went to Big W to buy myself a Christmas gift I really wanted. I bought myself the latest edition of Melway (map). On the second page of the book there was an insert advertising Navway. It's an electronic device known as navigator which is far better than the Melway I just bought for 32 bucks!

GPS
Like all other types of navigator Navway is using GPS which stands for Global Positioning System. Using GPS you can travel anywhere in the city or far countryside, with it you will never get lost. Let’s say I would like to go to my uncle’s house in Scoresby, I will just type the place of my location (Werribee) and then to my uncle’s address in Scoresby. After few seconds you will receive instructions: go straight, turn right, turn left…somebody will guide you. It will also tell the distance of your travel and will calculate your driving time! Supposing you get confused and you didn’t follow the instruction you turn left rather than right. Don’t panic. There is what you call recalculation. GPS will give new instructions. Just follow me and you will reach your destination. That’s Global Position System. You will never get lost.

GPS - God Provides Security
In our life as Christians we also have GPS, who will call God – God Provides Security.

All of us have a special place in God’s heart. When you get lost or stray God will find you like a Good Shepherd to his flock. When you lost meaning in life, He will fill you. When you sinned, He will forgive you. So with God, with Jesus Christ, becoming man, we have GPS – God Providing Security.

In the midst of our insecurity because of the problems around the world and our society we find our security in God. We have an amazing God, a God who loves us not because we are good but because he just wants to share His life with us.

In sharing His life with us He humbled himself and entered our human family. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI’s in his Christmas eve homily he said, God dwells on high, yet he stoops down to us!... God's stooping down became real in a way previously inconceivable. He stoops down: he himself comes down as a child to the lowly stable, the symbol of all humanity's neediness and forsakenness. God truly comes down. He becomes a child and puts himself in the state of complete dependence typical of a newborn child. The Creator who holds all things in his hands, on whom we all depend, makes himself small and in need of human love.

Today’s feast of the Holy Family Sunday is an opportunity for us to reflect first all on God’s greatest act of love in becoming human and becoming part of our human family, to give us security. Jesus is God Providing Security personified.

Secondly, today’s feast makes us look to the Holy Family – of Joseph, Mary and Jesus – as the model of every human family.

It is more important than ever that we look toward the Holy Family as a true model of family life to be imitated.

In our current society the institution of the family is under attack. There are forces in the world constantly at work to destroy the traditional and biblical understanding of what it means to be family. These people would like to remake the family according to their image rather than Gods.

We see it constantly in the attacks to redefine marriage as being something other than between a man and a woman and God. Marriage as an institution belongs to God and is only between a man and a woman and God. It is a sacred relationship that no one or even the state has a right to redefine for the sake of personal gratification. Every child being born has the right to live in family rooted in natural law, cared by mum and dad.

If our image of the family is distorted then our image of God will be distorted. If our image of family relationships is distorted then our understanding of our relationship with God will be as well. This is one reason God gives us a model to look to in the Holy Family of Nazareth.

Importance of Family
The family is the basic building block of society. Our family performed a vital role in what we are now today. It is where we first experience relationship. It is where we learned values, good manners and even our basic hygiene.

Most of all, it is in the family where we were first taught about God. It is here in the family where we first saw the image of God. Our family is our first church, where we learn the virtues we heard in our second reading: compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.

The family, is the first Christian community to which we belong, is really the testing-ground for how deep our relationship really is.


Today, we lift all our families to the Lord in prayer to ask for healing, grace and strength because family life is not easy today.

As we come to the end of the calendar year and make plans for next year, let us take priority our family’s spiritual well-being.

Every family must take advantage of the tools the Church gives us: namely the sacraments.

Parents must live a good sacramental life and set the example for their children. Parents must take their family to Mass together as a family every Sunday even when during on vacation. Parents must take their children to confession together as a family.

Conclusion
Every parent will do their best to provide security to their children. Mum and Dad work hard for their children future. But the best security that anyone can provide to his or her loved ones is God.

Only God can provide us love, joy, peace, unity and blessings all the good things we dream about for our family. God will give us these if we but trust Him, if we walk with Him, if welcome Him in our family. Only God can provide security to our families.

Let us be thankful that amidst the chaos around us we have our GPS – God Providing Security.






GPS heard from Bishop Honesto Ongtioco, bishop of Cubao; readings Captured Fire by Joseph Krempa