Growing up in a very Catholic neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, in the 1970s, my family belonged to the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “Nativity,” as we called the parish, was more than where you attended mass once a week. Nativity was a home. It was a place to worship, pray, go to school, attend basketball games, socialize at dances, have fun at carnivals and hang out with friends. Like my immigrant ancestors at the turn of the last century, I was lucky to have experienced the parish church as an extension of my own family.
The church, like any family, had its share of characters. There were the old-timers and the pillars of the parish. There were the priests, nuns, and teachers, along with my classmates and friends. There were the families who went to church regularly and those who only showed up at certain times of the year. Like any family, we had good times and challenging times, but we always walked together on the journey of life.
Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast is a reminder that Jesus came from a real, human family. God could have had his Son come to Earth in many ways. Greek, Roman, and other religious mythologies give us many examples of how the ancient gods came to earth. But God chose his Son to come to us through Mary. The Christian Scriptures explain that “in the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law (Galatians 4:4).”
The Gospel chosen for this feast is the genealogy of Jesus from the writings of Saint Matthew. The list of ancestors of Our Lord includes saints and sinners, humble people and proud people, lowly folks, famous folks, and unknown believers. No matter who was in his family tree, Jesus was able to break away from prejudice and bias and to do something new.
Matthew uses this list to show us that the story before and after the birth of Jesus is the same. Like the family of Jesus, the story of the Church is made up of the great and the small, the sinner and the saint, the ordinary and the extraordinary. The Church has a family tree that encompasses thousands of years and millions of people. Over time and into eternity, we are all striving for perfection and trying to follow the Lord.
As we recall the birth of the Mother of Jesus, we can reflect on our own family and our own story. We all come from a “mixed bag” of many different people, many different experiences. But, like Mary, God chooses the lowly to do great things and calls us all to walk and work together.
In the preface to the Introduction to the Devout Life, Saint Francis de Sales tells us that we are all called to live a holy life: “My purpose is to instruct those who live in cities, within families, and at court, and whose situation obliges them to live an ordinary life as far as externals are concerned.”
Wherever we are, wherever we came from, we are all invited to live a devout life. We are all invited to share our story, to share in the life of the Church.
Rev. Jack Kolodziej, OSFS
Provincial
Wilmington-Philadelphia Province
