Give us a smile!

How was your Holy Family Sunday? Too close for comfort? Too close to Christmas? I noticed far fewer people in church on that Sunday, the day after Christmas.

Also known as the Day of Goodwill and for some still thought of as Boxing Day, apparently it’s a day to exchange the gifts one doesn’t like, want or need.

Was it a holy family Sunday for yours? Holy doesn’t only mean being churchy but being wholesome, complete, happy, living in the presence of God through the love shared amongst us in our home and extended family.

I find it very sad that celebrating Holy Family Sunday is most often neglected by families themselves and the message—if it is preached about with full impact—is lost to so many. I believe it is the one Sunday in the year when the homily can focus more specifically on families themselves, without taking on board all the other social needs such as the poor, orphans, abused women, and so on.

These important needs and causes always seem to override the fact that each and every family has its own hope and joys, anxieties and sorrows. The Second Vatican Council recaptured the insight of the family as the domestic church. Pope John Paul II, who was very much a pope for the family, called on each family: “Families become what you are, the little church of the home.”

The African Synod, using the image of the Church as Family, also gives some impetus to the need to build up both Church and family.

So how was your Holy Family Sunday? Were you exhausted from the Christmas day festivities? Did you just lie about and relax, comfortable in each other’s company, with children and their parents happily playing with their new toys? Was it another lonely day in a long lonely weekend? Did anyone get drunk and disorderly? Were there fights (normal and common of course in any family cooped up together for more than a couple of hours at a time)? Did you all live side by side, each doing their own thing, watching your own TV, texting your own friends? Did you share a meal, maybe just of left-overs?

I find that nothing is ever perfect, no day, no holiday, no job, no party. There are always “if only” thoughts. If only I had had more time I would have phoned more of the members of the extended family, e-mailed them, SMSed them? If only I hadn’t eaten and/or drunk so much I would have had the energy to play games with the kids or grandchildren? If only we had taken a little time out to pray together, to reflect on that other Holy Family and thanked God for the gift of our family and asked his blessing to make our family a happy family and a truly holy family too.

But there is always another chance. The 2011 family theme chosen by the bishops’ Family Life Desk is “Peace on earth begins at home”, and the January theme uses a saying of Mother Teresa: “Peace begins with a smile.”

Even at the end of January, it’s not too late to make a New Year’s resolution. Ideally every member could do what they can to make your family a happy, holy family—and that can very well start with a smile.

Remember, “it starts with me”. Smile at yourself in the mirror, even make faces at yourself if that helps to make you smile and not just totally foolish. Smile at others as early as possible in the morning, while queuing up for the bathroom, having breakfast, saying goodbye on the way to school or work. Smile at others during the day, at strangers too. Smile your “goodnight” as a sign of your love for one another, which is God’s love too.

The first and sometimes the hardest way to build peace on earth is to start at home, and it really is not some stupid suggestion to commit to genuinely smile at those in your own home—and not a smirk or a grimace or the politely posed photo-smile. It is genuinely a good way to make your own family a happy holy family. If only we all did that we’d have a happy holy Church, truly a Church as Family.

Why not share some of your family’s smiley faces on MARFAM’s Facebook page. I’d love to see them.

Contact Toni Rowland at or visit www.marfam.org.za/blog for more on ministry to the family.