After twenty-odd years of hard work and development, having made many mistakes along the way and spending a fortune, the time has come to leave and start an independent life. But the future is uncertain, laden with possible stalls, failures and breakdowns, each one with the potential to render the whole thing a massive failure. I’m talking about the James Webb Space Telescope that yesterday, on Christmas Day, left our planet and started its journey to the designated place in space. Its development took almost 30 years, the costs spiralled to nearly $10 billion, with about 10,000 specialists from 14 countries involved. The instrument is so huge that it has to be transported into space like flat-packed furniture; then it will unfold itself like complicated origami in reverse, set up and position itself one million miles from the Earth. It has 344 single points of failure — parts that, if they do not deploy as needed, will doom the entire project, far from any chance of manual technical support. Those involved in the project will hold their breath for another 29 days to find out whether everything will have worked as planned. If so, scientists will have an extraordinary space instrument at their disposal for 5 to 10 years; an instrument that can massively further our knowledge of the universe.
The story of the telescope’s development, its specifications, fantastically complicated intricate design and prospects are fascinating and strangely familiar. To a great extent, it all sounds like the story of most families who are or have been raising children. It takes about two decades to bring up a child. The process is remarkably complex, it involves countless numbers of people: the parents, siblings and other members of the family; childcare and school staff, not to mention all those incidental interactions we can’t put a finger on. There’s the enormous economic cost, with expenses spiralling over the years. And then there are personal, social and mental costs of dealing with tantrums, tensions, arguments, cries and shouts. Not to mention the nagging feeling that I’m failing in my job as a parent. And when eventually all the efforts seem to come to an end, they leave home and start their own lives. But the expected sense of freedom is just replaced with other worries and – sometimes – an even greater sense of helplessness and overall failure. This somehow grim description is all we need at Christmas… Well, welcome to the feast of the Holy Family.
When we hear this phrase – the holy family – we automatically see that as an ideal or perfect family, free of tensions, arguments and conflicts, always dealing with challenges and difficulties in a perfect, peaceful and civilised manner. Well, such a family has never existed and if someone tells you it has – they lie. In more general terms, we tend to misunderstand holiness as a moral, social and personal perfection achieved and exercised here and now. Because of such misconceptions combined with a realistic perception of ourselves as imperfect, weak and flawed individuals, the notion of holiness is effectively rejected as unrealistic, irrelevant and impossible to achieve. Consequently, most of you don’t see your families as holy ones. Dare I say… You’re wrong!
Every Sunday we profess our faith in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. But we know that the Church isn’t morally perfect, or free of internal tensions, arguments and sometimes scandalous or downright criminal attitudes and acts committed by its members, including ministers or consecrated individuals. The Church is holy because it was sanctified by the blood of Christ. As individual baptised members of the Church and as a community of the faithful we are called to match such ontological holiness with our actions but it’s an ongoing dynamic process prompted and supported by the Holy Spirit. It applies to specific vocations within the church like mine as a priest or yours as husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. I was consecrated and made holy when I was ordained; you were consecrated and made holy in the sacrament of holy matrimony. It’s highly unlikely that our moral stances, attitudes and actions perfectly match such consecration already; I know that in my case the gap is huge and there’s a lot to do to close it.
Holiness means striving for goodness, for development, for improvement in every aspect of life, on every level and at each stage of life. Mistakes and failures are indispensable, irreplaceable means of growth. As you cannot learn to swim theoretically, you cannot learn how to make the right decisions without making mistakes and learning from them. Everything is part of the process of learning and it’s better to stress-test and troubleshoot potential problems in the safety of the domestic environment. Those involved with the development of the James Webb Space Telescope, having done everything they could, now can only hold their breath and hope for the best. It’s the same for us, parents and educators – we can do our best, embrace our failures as part of the process and hope for the best. Our children will have to manage on their own – but well equipped and prepared they shall do just fine.
Image by Charles McArthur from Pixabay