Greeting the bishops for Christmas is a
practice dictated not just by an age-old tradition but even more so by simple
basic courtesy. We come to greet them
just as we visit and greet members of our family. The church through the ages has always been looked
upon as a family - we are not comrades united by an ideal, we are not partners
united by a common interest, we are not colleagues bounded together by a
working relationship. No, we are family
bound together under a paterfamilias.
Even the liturgy calls us famulus or famula for feminine. Though it means servants we are not referred
to as servus or even the ancilla to which Mary referred to herself in relation
to God. We are famuli - we are household
servants, and though we are servants we are members of the family.
This
is my point then when we couple this greeting with the poem by GK Chesterton
which I read - It is not He, but we. It is not that
he has more to gain but we have more to lose.
This greeting is not about the bishops. It is about us who greet the bishops - it is
we who gain. For in this greeting our relationships are defined, our bond is strengthened, our mission is reaffirmed.
Your Grace, your Excellency we greet you today a Blessed
Christmas. You are paterfamilias, we are famuli, we may even be filii. Whatever that is we affirm today by our
presence here with you that we are family, the household of faith.
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