(School Mass): Friday, December 17, 2004

Every afternoon, they show reruns of the old “Andy Griffith Show” on the TVLand channel. Maybe some of you have seen some of the episodes.

When the show first started, they had to explain how that family came to be—why Aunt Bee was living with Sheriff Andy Taylor and his little boy, Opie. So one of the earliest stories in the series told how Andy’s wife had died. He asked his Aunt Bee to come live with them so she could add a feminine touch.

But Opie wasn’t happy. He thought that Aunt Bee was somehow trying to “replace” his mother—which nobody could ever do. Andy came up with an idea: he invited Aunt Bee to go fishing and frog-catching with them, figuring that Opie would become attached to her. It didn’t work, because Aunt Bee was a miserable failure at fishing, frogging, and later football.

Finally, late at night, after Opie was in bed, Aunt Bee talked Andy into taking her to the bus station. Opie heard her crying outside his bedroom window and guessed that she was leaving. He hopped out of bed, ran down the stairs and out to the truck, and exclaimed to his dad, “We can’t let her go, Pa! She needs us! She can’t even catch frogs, take fish off the hook, or throw a football. We’ve got to take care of her or she’ll never make it!”

Even little Opie understood that taking care of your family is something very important that we all have to do. Even though Aunt Bee wasn’t too good at a lot of stuff, he didn’t want her to leave. Love is a lot stronger than being able to catch frogs!

You’d want to keep your Mom even if she always burned your dinner, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t want to send your little brother to the orphanage even if he’s always messing with your stuff. Your parents certainly wouldn’t send you away if you got sick . . . or failed a test . . . or even got in trouble at home or school all the time. Yes, of course, love is a lot stronger than all that.

And that, you see, is one of the reasons for this strange Gospel reading today with all those funny names. It’s called a “genealogy”—which is the proper name for a family tree, or the history of a family from a long, long time ago to the present day.

St. Matthew put the story of Jesus’ family right at the very beginning of his Gospel for a few different reasons. First, he wanted to tell us about the human side of Jesus’ family so we’d know that He really was true man with grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents and lots more ancestors like we all have.

And another reason—a reason that I especially like to think about—is to show us how strong and powerful God’s love is.

You probably don’t know an awful lot about all the people whose names we heard, but many of those men and women have very interesting stories.

Some, of course, were very good and kind and holy—people like Abraham, King Solomon, and Joseph.

But some of them were pretty wicked and committed terrible sins. In that list, we find murderers . . . cowards . . . people who betrayed their friends and even family members . . . mothers who had babies without being married . . . and people who wouldn’t obey God.

Did God push them away and tell them to get lost? No way! Instead, He made them part of His family. They are part of the family tree, the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Without all of those people, good and bad, there would not have been a Jesus!

Now think about what that means: if God loved and cherished all the good people and bad people of the past, don’t you think that He’ll love and cherish you and me, too—even if we’re not always as good as we know we should be? Of course He will—and does.

And, there’s something else, too: Jesus came from the same family tree and He was perfect. Remember, He was a man like us in all ways except sin. So it doesn’t matter what your mother did, or what your grandfather did, or what your great-great-great-uncle did . . . you’ve got everything that you need “in your genes” to be perfect, too!

Jesus wants us to remember this, especially as we get closer to Christmas. Isn’t it a happy feeling to know that we’re always safe with God and His love is always there, no matter what!

The very best gift we can give Jesus this Christmas is to try to be the kind of girl or boy, or man or woman, that He wants us to be. He loves us too much for us not to be holy! The best gift you can give Jesus doesn’t cost any money and doesn’t have to be wrapped. Just promise Him from your heart that you will love Him more and really try to be good and loving towards everyone you meet—especially your own family!

Today, of course, is the last day of school before our Christmas break, so I want to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy, healthy and holy New Year! Have a great vacation—you’ve worked hard and you deserve it! I promise to pray for you and ask God’s special blessings on all of you. Please pray for me, too, as Maggie and I travel to Ohio to be with our family.

Come back safe, and we’ll see you in 2005! God love you all.