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So I guess it is true that most parents will at some point say to their children something like, you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up, or you can do whatever you want to do when you grow up. And I think the intention is good. You want to instill some adventure in the child. Don't be afraid to try new things or resilience. If you fall down, get up again, and to promise unconditional love. I just don't think it's the way the blessed mother or St. Joseph would have been speaking to Jesus in the household of the Holy Family. I can't imagine our lady or St. Joseph saying to Jesus, you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up, or you can do whatever you want to do when you grow up. I think they saw their role much more as helping him to know the reason for which God sent him into the world. And they were saying things to him like, we will try our best, do whatever we can to help you discover your vocation, the purpose for which the Father sent you into this world to to be the man that he sent you into the world to be and to do the work that he sent you into the world to do. But why is it that we say about Jesus, well, he has meaning and purpose and vocation and relationship with God and came into the world for a reason. But we, we have to give all that to ourselves. Why do we think that, you know, the church doesn't teach that we believe that every person has a vocation, a call to holiness, a reason for which he or she has been created and then entrusted to parents for the formation of that vocation. So Merry Christmas, everyone, and welcome back to the Monday after. Now, this weekend we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family, and I focused my homily on St. Joseph saying, in order for Christ to ascend the hill of Calvary to die on the cross for us, he first needed help from St. Joseph to become a man who could climb a hill, meaning do a tough thing in this world, to do God's will and to do God's will even unto death. So after risking our salvation first on Mary's yes, then God took another risk by asking Joseph to form the humanity of His Divine Son. So God had already given Jesus an identity and all the natural gifts necessary to live his vocation. But then he entrusted his son to the formation of his parents, the blessed mother and St. Joseph. So here's a summary of the homily I preached. I hope you enjoy and I hope that those of you who are parents will find it helpful and encouraging. So I watched recently a presentation from a child psychologist about the results of an experiment she performed on children who were just six months old. The infants were shown a skit using three shapes, a circle, a square, and a triangle. First, the circle was depicted trying to climb up a hill, but sliding back down again, each time unable to do it on its own. So a square would then appear at the base of the hill and help the circle up the hill. But then sometimes a triangle would appear at the top of the hill and push the circle back down. After repeating this a bunch of times, the skit is ended and the child removed from the room. And then later on, the psychologist comes back to the child and presents a square and a triangle and says, go ahead, take one. And almost all of the children reach for the square because the square was the one trying to help the circle up the hill. Hmm. So we're definitely born with a God given sense of good and bad, which we apparently associate closely with the difference between helpful and harmful. And yet that same God entrusts us to our parents for the development of that sense of right and wrong. A truth about the design of our humanity, which is so fundamental that the Son of God allowed himself to be formed into a good and helpful man by earthly parents. Imagine so. I mean, did you ever wonder if Jesus would have been able to accomplish his mission were it not for the formation he received from his mother and father without taking anything away from his being fully divine? Is it possible that his divinity could have gone to waste or fallen into the hands of the devil were it not for the virtues that Our lady and St. Joseph sowed into his humanity through their parenting. Now, granted, they were nurturing the gifts that God gave, but it's the parenting that brings that intuition and those innate gifts from God to full fruition. What if our Lord was not formed into the kind of man who could actually do God's will unto death? You know, what an incredible and terrifying thing to consider. And why would God take such a risk? In any case, he most certainly did. He sent his son into the world like that circle, unable to climb Calvary on his own. So instead of self sufficiency, he chose dependency on his parents to help him as the square helped the circle to ascend that hill. The world is full of triangles trying to push our children down the hill. Ever since the fall of our first parents, it's been a danger for every child and every generation. But because God redeemed the world by first Assuming that risk himself. I think he's saying to us that the redemption of our culture in our times will certainly also begin with the family and in particular the parents. So here's a word of encouragement to you parents, and it's based on something that was said to me by the bishop who ordained me, Bishop Murphy. He said it to me about my writing and I thought about it a lot since seems to me more about life. He said, use less adjectives. Use less adjectives. Adjectives. Interesting. The best advice I'd ever been given about writing. But I also hear him saying now, trust the authority of your fatherhood, your priesthood. You don't need to force people into anything or even make them into something. You need only nurture what God has given them already and encourage them to embrace who they are to God. You see? And that's what I want to say to those of you who are parents. St. Joseph may have been tempted to say to Jesus, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. But he trusted in his authority as a parent to say, I'm here to help you to be the person that you are to God. Joseph also may have been tempted to say, I want you to be the man that I say you are or the person that I want you to be. But again, he was a good parent and said, jesus, you need to do God's will. You have to answer your vocation from him. It's a little funny putting words into the mouth of St. Joseph since not a single word of his was recorded for us in the scriptures. He was apparently so masterful at using less adjectives that he used no other parts of speech either. But of course, his silence is more a sign of his being a good listener, a man obedient to God. So Joseph most certainly died before Jesus ascended the hill of Calvary, but he had already done his part to make it possible. And I hope this gives new confidence to those of you who are parents, because St. Joseph can say to us, I was not perfect, I made mistakes. But I knew that God had already given my son gifts and an identity. I needed only to nurture that in him and to help him to embrace those gifts and that identity. Okay, sometimes I wonder about that response the 12 year old Jesus gave to his parents when they found him in the temple after losing him. Why were you looking for me? He says, or asks, did you not know I must be in my Father's house? And I imagine Joseph and Our lady saying, okay, first of all, why weren't you in the caravan when we left. And secondly, you still got some growing up to do. That's what they would have said to him. I think the reason we know about this occasion is because Mary and Joseph used to remind him of it and also tell the early church about it. Like there was this time when he said to us, like a teenager, why were you looking for me? Did you not know? I must be in my father's house. Okay, so he's getting a sense of who he is to the Father, but he still needs formation. He's still a teenager, still becoming a man. And we're told, and the scriptures say that he returned with them to Nazareth and was obedient to them. Was obedient to them.