The old adage says, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.”
A family is like a body. It’s made up of many parts, some that we are proud of and others that we’d rather either hide or disguise. But whatever the makeup of our family, and whether we are religious or not, we are now approaching the time when families get together. This causes old demons to reappear, and old family issues that we tried to ignore all year long and prefer that they would remain quiet under the nicely decorated table are again exposed.This forces us to deal with these issues that do not go away just because we choose to ignore them. Setting aside all calendrical, theological, and historical controversies about this story, next week people will be getting together for a meal around the idea that about 2,000 years ago a special child was born. A child who, due to indifferent ignorance had to be born in some sort of animal shelter or cave and whose first bed was an animal trough. While this child had little or no value to the local hostelry and whose death was sought by the local government, the poor and the destitute came to honor his birth. He later was known as He who receives the rejected, and opens His kingdom to the dejected. May we honor Him on that day by warmly receiving the rejected and opening our arms to the dejected ones of our own families.
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