Not the Perfect Family

Not the Perfect Family

At Mass Saturday night Father chanced to remark that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are referred to as “the Holy Family” rather than “the Perfect Family.”

The principle can, of course, be taken too far.  “Perfect” in its Latin root means thoroughly or completely made—as we might say in modern English, “finished” or perhaps “perfected.”  And in that sense, the Holy Family was quite likely the most perfect family in history, because they totally fulfilled their roles (to use traditional terminology) or totally fulfilled themselves (as we have said since the sixties)—which, if both phrases be rightly understood, comes to the same thing.

But of course, not every family looks like the Holy Family.  Indeed, they had what might well be described as a nontraditional arrangement, inasmuch as Joseph was Jesus’s foster father, etc., etc.  And from that fact, broken and blended families can take heart.  There is a normal, a normative arrangement of father, mother, and biological children; but exigencies ranging from death to any number of lesser evils can change that shape.  And when need imposes a different order upon a given family, it is comforting to think that they still have as good a chance (speaking supernaturally, though certainly not by nature) of being a “perfect family.”  Not the “perfect” arrangement of a father, mother, and two or twelve children; but perfect in the way that the Holy Family was perfect: in their dedication to “My Father’s business” which is summed up in that other line: “Little Children, love one another.”