Parents are called to be artists - Holy Family 2018 homily

The Catholic Church has long been connected with art and beauty

            

A way to point to the higher things beyond our every day reality also help us to see that we are always surrounded by such things that point us to those higher truths 

Saint John Paul II – “a letter to artists”

“None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of what God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. A glimmer of that feeling has shone so often in your eyes when—like the artists of every age—captivated by the hidden power of sounds and words, colours and shapes, you have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God, the sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate you.

There has always been a fruitful dialogue between the Church and artists which has gone on unbroken through two thousand years of history.

In fact, this dialogue is not dictated merely by historical accident or practical need, but is rooted in the very essence of both religious experience and artistic creativity. The human craftsman mirrors the image of God as Creator.”

So we promote and have promoted beauty in the Church for 2,000 years – promoted art and artists

I say all this to say that as Catholics, as important as the vocation of an artist is, the people who have the greatest ability to mold, shape, craft and create something of infinite worth are families – and primarily parents

            In 2 Sentences at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, God sets everything in place, and God also lays out all the most fundamental things that are under attack today

      God created mankind in his image; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply

And in case it isn’t clear, God reiterates in the next chapter: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body

The greatest work, infinitely more than the mona lisa or Beethoven’s 5^th, is a human person, and the parents, and thus the larger family as well, is offered the role of helping shape and form that human child into a saint – to teach, to nurture, to train

           

Artists, when inspired and motivated to create something, will forego sleep, money, food, etc. because they have a vision of what they are creating.  Parents are called to operate under the same inspiration – to see their vocation to be artists, co-creators, given a role to play in the shaping and formation of a human person

God doesn’t just dictate this from on high – it is through the family that Jesus Christ is trained and shaped and raised.  Most of his life is unknown, time with his family, time working, time being taught and trained and loved and formed by parents.  God models this and opts for this

The world seeks to rip apart everything in Genesis.

People are not made in the image and likeness of God

God did not create them male and female

People should not be fruitful and multiply

Marriage is not a man and a woman leaving their father and mother and becoming one body

The Catholic Church, and this parish, are a place that radically is for families – we stand behind parents who are making the RADICAL and COURAGEOUS choice to accept God’s call to be artists of people – co creators of that which has infinite beauty – a human person

We thank all families for their yes to cooperate with the plan of God, a plan that He first lived himself in coming into the world through the formation of parents and family