Mass readings for the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph:
Sirach 3.2-6, 12-14 Psalm 128.1-5 Colossians 3.12-21 Matthew 2.13-15, 19-23
It’s called the “Overton Window” and it refers to a theory developed by one Joseph Overton to explain how societies discuss in the public forum ideas in terms of what is held to be acceptable, and what is beyond the pale. Overton was an American political scientist active in the 1990s who developed this concept. So, the “window” is the framing of discussions, particularly those touching on important, central issues to a society that excludes ideas, opinions, options, that exist beyond its frame. It especially affects people in leadership roles: politicians, corporation presidents, university deans, and, indeed, Catholic bishops. Raise an idea that is outside that frame, and one can be pilloried as misogynistic, racist, theocratic, intolerant, etc. And so, discredited, dismissed, and sent off like the scapegoat of ancient times who ritually became all sin, into the wilderness.
The thing about this window, according to Overton, is that it shifts. So, the window is not like one on a house where the view is the same but for the weather and changing seasons. It’s more like a window on a slow-moving train: what gets included, what is considered acceptable changes as some things fall outside the frame and other things come into it.
Why and how this happens is the subject of a great deal of discussion – and for political parties, institutions, activists, but also the Church, how and why that window moves is incredibly important. For most, the concern is to know the limits and stay within them – for example, that’s how an election is won in most situations, people are risk averse and stay away from radical and extreme options; we tend to vote for what seems safe, strikes us as reasonable, feels familiar. For some though, shifting the window is the task at hand.
And shifting it has little to do with objective truth, concrete evidence that proves an idea to be sound and so, worth discussing. No, the window does not respond to evidence, but rather human sentiment. That is, for all our society’s boast of being scientific, rational, technological, and so, grounded in reality, our discussions of very important matters are really all based in emotion. And so, when a president, prime minister or, yes, pope says something that registers a response in the media of “shock”; when it’s labelled “bold” or “controversial” we know that what’s been said is either on the edge or outside the Overton Window.
I sat down to prepare this homily on the Holy Family remembering that Pope Leo had offered his own reflections earlier in the year as part of the Jubilee celebrations, and so, I did a search for his comments. Well, among the “hits” I got was a story that went back to the beginning of his pontificate. Some may remember his address to Vatican diplomats in May where he discussed a range of topics. The headline from MSN was: “Pope Leo XIV Shocks the World with Bold Stance on Family, Life, and Global Peace in First Address”.
And MSN wasn’t alone in characterizing the story that way. However, PBS’s headline was more moderate, “Pope Leo XIV says family is ‘between a man and a woman’ and asserts the dignity of the unborn” – so, it was one of a few that didn’t employ words like “shock” or “controversy” but I still find the headline amusing. After all, that’s supposed to be news, but it’s hardly that. You know, it’s like the headline “dog bites man.” How is the Pope’s reiteration of Church teaching news?
It isn’t. But it is an instance of the Holy Father trying to shift that window, get something back into the public conversation that’s been ruled “out of bounds” for too long. It’s also information for us: it tells us something about how those who lead our cultural, our opinion-making institutions think. The mind of the Church is to conform itself to the mind of Christ, but how well do we know the collective mind of our society and to what it is conforming itself; how about our own minds when it comes to such things? Why do we think as we do? Is it because we are more learned, more intelligent, and so look with a jaundiced eye at the traditional teaching of the Church? Well, I think our sight is jaundiced; and I don’t mean that merely as being skeptical or cynical; no, I mean diseased. Having overturned the wisdom of tradition in the last century, and becoming aware in the recent years of this century, gradually, but often in dramatic leaps, of how little wisdom there is among the current establishment, we’re coming to know not all is well because everything is tinged with disease. We look at how are lives are, those of our children and grandchildren, the living situation in our cities, the state of the roads, the schools, the hospitals, etc. and we know things aren’t right, but few want to acknowledge the true nature of the problems, let alone deal with them beyond applying the same old useless remedies, which usually means overmedicating, and so we can translate that metaphor into what we see in the applying of more bureaucracy, more technology, more debt to revive civil and economic life.
To continue this metaphor of disease and treatment, I’m struck by new generations of health professionals, both those of the mainstream and the so-called alternative. A lot of them are saying the first principle really has to be healthy living; and that’s not just eating more salad, and going jogging. It’s really about a change in the fundamentals, the foundation of one’s life; giving priority to that which truly gives life and health. And that is what our Holy Father is talking about.
When addressing visitors during the Jubilee of the family, Pope Leo said the Holy Family is, “the perfect model God offers as a response to the desperate cry for help from families… By imitating it, our homes will become living torches of God’s light.”
And so, we can look at the story of the Holy Family, at Joseph and Mary in their prioritizing the safety of the Christ child: they do what must be done to preserve that life, and bring it to its fulfilment.
So, Joseph sees the dangers and responds. He takes the family to Egypt to get them away from the clutches of evil King Herod; but even after Herod’s death, he knows the regime itself has not changed. It is still marked by paranoia, and in the thrall of the Roman Empire that values, far more than justice or truth, the brute principle of order: that everyone obeys. That is the principle behind every atrocity of history, every tyranny; it is the power principle, and that is absolutely contrary to Christ.
A return to family means a turning away from so much that has been assumed for several generations about the nature and purpose of life, about the roles of men and women, of the priority of the individual and the satisfaction of his or her desires. All this very much backed and propagated by the powers of this world.
In speaking for this return, none of what Pope Leo had to say was about the derogation of women; advocating for the paranoid fantasy of the Handmaid’s Tale. Simply, without family, there will be nothing because in authentic family we see plainly the sacrificial love that enables life. And we as Christians know that it is in our self-offering that we find our meaning. And that can be in a life of singleness and service through what skills we have, what knowledge we gain, and then put at the service of God. We have long experience of both lay and religious people who’ve dedicated their lives in that manner. But can we really say that the putting off of family, the denial of it as the principal source of meaning, has worked to advance our civilization? It’s been a semi-conscious hedonism that we’ve indulged with its promise of pleasure and no accountability beyond the individual’s sense that he or she is enjoying themselves. But if we care to note the growing crises of loneliness and despair, the sense of life as being without purpose because it has been without care or sacrifice for anyone but oneself, we can’t escape the truth of God’s wisdom, the truth of the ages.
As Pope Leo said at a September audience, “In every child, in every wife or husband, God entrusts us with his Son, his Mother, as he did with St. Joseph, so that together with them we may be the foundation, the leaven, and the witness of God’s love.”
That is what we are to be as a Church: a spiritual family, yes, but also a support to human family that they may find refuge with us from the world, a little local Nazareth in which they might settle and in this community nurture Christ within their homes. We are to help lay foundations, germinate the leaven, witness God’s love.
We offer this through our stewardship events that really are about caring for the precious resource that is all of you, the fellowship of the dinners, the movie nights, the coming together to support this parish. It’s also through the offering of Alpha Marriage – how many young couples, with or without kids, struggle to find time for themselves, quality time of mutual appreciation and intentionally availing for themselves the graces of the sacrament that is marriage? That’s going to be chance to have a couple of hours together, a meal, some time to talk to each other, learn a bit more about the blessings of that special sacrament; and all while someone watches the kids, minds the baby. I really hope this gets taken up; and not just by those couples found in the pews regularly. I think so many need this.
And that ethos of providing a spiritual home, a little Nazareth, and a place where needed conversations about life, its true meaning and real purpose can happen, that should be found behind all the initiatives of our parish. We all are to be Joseph and Mary: hands on in the sense of offering something real, tangible, in the care and concern we offer to those around us who need to recover that sense of family that the Holy Father speaks of: as being a light that illuminates, a warming fire, a beacon of hope.
Amen.