Priests and Families

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 30, 2024

The Holy Family forms the spiritual foundation of every family. A priest’s job is to direct attention to the joyful mysteries of the Holy Family and support families in his ministry. But many people rightly ask: “What does a priest, who isn’t married, know about families?”

The early chapters of the Evangelists provide insights into the Holy Family. Mary and St. Joseph are betrothed in marriage. He is Jesus’ foster father. Mary and Joseph are faithful to each other. We identify Joseph as the Guardian of the Redeemer and pray to him as the patron of a happy death. He died in the holy presence of Jesus and Mary.

The lost-and-found-in-the-temple scene (cf. Lk. 2:41-52) discloses confusion and misunderstanding in the Holy Family. Misunderstanding is not sinful, provided we sort out the confusion with mutual honesty, love, and respect. Mary’s agitated question is without sin: “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

Jesus replies with a question, the customary (often humorous) Talmudic Jewish practice: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my father’s business?” Mary and Joseph did not understand, and “he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them, and his mother kept all these things in her heart.” All remained sinless, and Jesus proved it by His obedience.

We also read one of the mysteries of the Incarnation. Jesus, Emmanuel—the Word made Flesh—“…increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” Any youthful immaturity (as logic suggests)—as when he was lost in the Temple—was without sin. The immaturity of our kids is also without sin, provided they take direction in obedience from their parents. Jesus, in His sacred humanity, grew in the knowledge of the ways of the world as any young man would, except He was perfectly obedient and without sin.

The scene provides only a glimpse into the mystery of the Holy Family but accompanied by Scriptural readings, priests are equipped to draw some insights and apply them to family life.

The Church trains priests with (one hopes) authentic Church teaching. He knows “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mk. 10:9) The marriage bond—without the obstacles of serious impediments, and sealed with the proper intentions (exclusive fidelity and open to children, until death)—is indissoluble. A priest also reads the Proverbs and knows, “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” (Prov. 21:9) (Hey, don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger.)

A priest grows up in a family. He should know something about nagging wives and brawling households. I played basketball with my older brother in the backyard as a teenager. In the afternoon, we got into a terrific fight which our mother witnessed. She usually only threatened to rat us out to Dad, but this time the fight was so raucous that Mom carried through with her threat.

Dad came home after an exhausting day and was met by a distraught wife. He lined us up for an interrogation. Dad asked for an accounting of our misbehavior. We complied. No excuses. Then he demanded, “Look, the next time you two get into a fight, go behind the garage where your mother can’t see you!”

Have you noticed how in-laws often interfere with their kids? I have. I grew up in a family. When I was a seminarian, my parents went into a conversation about my (now deceased) beloved sister and brother-in-law, with the usual gossipy opinions in-laws tend to have. I have the same capacity for gossip, and I’m not throwing any stones from my glass house. But in a moment of sanity, I told my parents—as I tell in-laws from the pulpit—“Look, your daughter married a man and formed a new family with a marriage bond protected by God. Do not threaten their marriage by becoming a dividing factor.”

Usually I’m a smart aleck with my family. But this time I was on target because my seminary formation included these words of Jesus: “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.’ So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mk.10:8-10)

As a priest of 35 years, I’ve also heard countless confessions. Like every priest who works the confessional, I know the squabbling within most families, the fights, the misunderstandings, the need for forgiveness, and the need to seek forgiveness. Healthy confessions identify and treat personal spiritual pathologies and keep families together. A priest should be an expert on right and wrong: the Ten Commandments.

The confessions he hears also provide a relentless examination of conscience to prepare him for his own sacramental confession. Competent doctors have patients to remind them to live healthy lives. Competent priests also have the privilege of penitents helping them examine their conscience.

An all-too-common temptation is to expect a priest to become another man’s prudence. The Commandments are sufficient to evoke obedience. Aside from assigning penance and warning a penitent to avoid the occasions of sin, a priest should invoke obedience only in rare cases (scrupulosity, for example).

A priest is not a therapist. If an emotional pathology or addiction needs professional help, a good priest should grant absolution but humbly refer the penitent to an upright and competent therapist.

Hence a priest knows more about family life than many people think. Expect honesty and orthodoxy, but don’t expect too much from him. Rely on God’s law and His grace. And, gentlemen, listen to your wives with love so they won’t turn to the priest as their surrogate husbands for “spiritual direction.”