Holy Family from Bishop Larry Silva’s creche collection. (HCH photo | Anna Weaver)
OFFICE FOR SOCIAL MINISTRY
“Brothers and sisters: Put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another … And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, and provide the peace into which you were also called in one body.” (Col 3:12-15 — Feast of the Holy Family)
This Scripture passage is from the Mass for the Feast of the Holy Family, celebrated on the first Sunday after Christmas. This feast honors how Jesus, Mary and Joseph embody what it means to be an ohana with compassion, humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness facing all challenges together. Here in Hawaii, our Ohana Mass ministry provides persons living with disabilities the opportunity to gather, worship, be nourished, and then sent to serve as one body, “One Ohana.”
A few weeks ago, more than 30 members of Oahu’s Ohana Mass community gathered in the library of the bishop’s Pali residence to celebrate Christ’s coming. They met in the midst of a beautiful display of 150 Nativity scenes from Bishop Larry’s Silva’s extensive creche collection, which was featured in the Dec. 14 Hawaii Catholic Herald. Diocesan staff had lovingly decorated the room for the Mass, showing their tender solidarity with families facing the everyday difficulties of disabilities.
As blind, deaf and lame persons came together to celebrate Christmas, the Holy Family scenes came alive with the spirit of vulnerability transformed into hope from experiencing God among us — Emmanuel. The Gospel’s Christmas infancy narrative, reflected in all gathered there, was a vivid reminder of the reason for the season — to celebrate God revealed in a vulnerable child to a family, community and world facing serious challenges.
As Bishop Silva shared in his Christmas message, “When we take time to contemplate the Baby Jesus, to draw close to him, and to love him, we no longer want to isolate ourselves from the problems of the world, but to embrace them as he did, to heal them with his love, and to transform them with his innocent presence.”
Pope Francis’ Christmas message also called us “to be moved by the little Child of Bethlehem, whose tenderness can shake us from our indifference, open our eyes to all who are suffering, and awaken our sensitivity to see God in all the vulnerable who arrive in our lives.”
The Christmas season is a time for sharing gifts and the experience of family, of ohana, as a special gift of shared vulnerability that draws us closer together, reminding us we need each other and Emmanuel, God with us. Celebrating as one ohana with the Holy Family provides us the opportunity to transform our shared vulnerability into the strength of tenderness which can bring a joyful peace to all.
For more on the Ohana Mass ministry and this year’s One Ohana Christmas video message, please visit www.catholichawaii.org and www.officeforsocialministry.org.
Mele Kalikimaka a me ka Hauoli Makahki hou.
Mahalo.
Your Friends at the Office for Social Ministry
