We Are All Part of God’s Holy Family
2023년 12월 31일We Are All Part of God’s Holy Family
< Feast of The Holy Family >
On the darkest hour of the darkest day, when lust for power corrupted the best and One of the first things I noticed about life in Korea is the importance of family. In fact, all of Korean society is built on relationships. The relationship between friends quickly evolves into expressions of family. An older friend is soon addressed as 형 (Hyoung) and a younger friend becomes 아우(Ah u). When I wasn’t addressed by my students at Kyungbuk University in Daegu as Honorable Professor (교수님), I was called “Uncle” (아저씨) by total strangers. The result of this is that I realized I wasn’t as alone as I feared and I quickly got over feeling homesick. Instead I felt part of a larger family. This had a downside. I found out Koreans are much more precise defining a relationships than Americans are. That is to say, English lacks words to describe some Korean relationships. 아저씨, 삼촌 and 외삼촌 all translate as “uncle” because we do not distinguish the father’s side from the mother side, let alone generational differences. And there are some relationships in Korea that do not exist in English. 사돈 is a good example. That’s the relationship between the parents of a husband and wife. I confess I really got confused when a women referred to her husband as 우리 남편. Lucky for me, by becoming a priest I avoided having a spouse, children or 사돈. What all this underscores is how important and how seriously Koreans take relationships.
Which brings us to today’s feast of the Holy Family. Jesus didn’t just enter into our human nature, he entered into the messiness of family life. Don’t be fooled by all those holy cards and pictures with the Blessed Mother knitting while St. Joseph teaches carpentry to his foster son as doves coo on the roof. The gospels show the holy family had misunderstandings, difficulties and hardships. They were more like our families than we realize. I didn’t have a peaceful relationship with my father for the first 30 years! When he was hospitalized with Alzheimer’s he forgot who I was. He would ask, “Where are you from, Father?” When I said, “Dad!” he’d cry and apologize then five minutes later ask me who I was. Once while visiting him he told me about his son who was a Missioner in Korea and doing great things. The first time I heard my father ever compliment me, he thought he was talking to a stranger. That’s when I appreciated this feast of the Holy Family, precisely because we had problems too, just like them. I realized what makes a family holy is not the absence of problems but the presence of God.