A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, blessed are your eyes because they see, and blessed are your ears because they hear. I assure you, many a prophet and many a saint longed to see what you see but did not see it, to hear what you hear but did not hear it. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
The first reading today emphasizes the fact or the truth that the posterity of good people forever gives praise to their ancestors. Now I will praise those godly men, our ancestors, each in his own time. Then it says, their heritage with their descendants, through god's covenant with them, their family endures. Their posterity for their sake shall endure, and their glory shall never be blotted out. Not being a parent, although called a father, this, I think, has very special meaning or should have for parents.
Today you hear so much about professionalism, productivity, holding a job, being a positive asset to society. There's a forego of epithets used today to emphasize many aspects of life, and today especially of women's life, and what constitutes a woman's career, and what are the measures of success. One of the one of the epithets used to describe some women's careers is just a housewife and mother. Well, I that makes me see red whenever I hear that. Just a housewife and mother.
Now it's very difficult, you see, to talk on one subject of the one aspect of this problem without being or seeming to be in in opposition to or an adversary of other aspects. But the that for in any society, in any society, where you can take a dim view of the home and parenthood, you must be dealing with a bunch of ignoramuses. You must be dealing with a bunch of people out of their cotton picking minds. Because it doesn't take you don't have to go back and read Aristotle's politics. In the very first book and the very first chapter of his politics, remember politics comes from the word polis, which means city, which means human community.
You can't you cannot even read their that very first book without seeing how he emphasizes that the family is the heart of a society. And though he lived four hundred years before Christ, who can who can contradict that? You know, you you get in you've been involved with this great enterprise called education, and parents are very much involved with the enterprise called education. So you start with a college level. And the first thing, if you ever talk to any college admission officers, the first thing you hear is the low quality of the candidates, how the standards are going down.
Well, what's wrong? It's what they're getting in high school rather what they're not getting in high school. Well, you say, thank you. Now we know where the problem is. So you go to the high school and you say, look, you're not doing a very good job here.
Look at your SAT scores. Look how they've been going down. Look at how few of your students are going in for math or for science. And the good people in the high school turn to you and say, Well, we know that, but it's not our fault. Then you say, well, we were told it was your fault.
Well, whose fault is it? Oh, it's in the it's in the elementary school. They're not getting the foundation there that they need. So you say, well, thank you. Now I know where the problem is.
So you go to the elementary school, and you say, look, you're not doing a very good job. The high school people are unhappy with the with with your product. And they say, well, we know we're not turning out the we're nowhere we know we're turning out a bunch of illiterates, But we can't help it. I say, why can't you help it? Because it's the it's a family.
It's the home situation that's at fault. Now where are you? You're way back and you started up there in the freshman college, now you're back in in the home. Many just a few years ago, a summary of all the secondary schools around the district, Metropolitan Washington, was published. And they published ratings, if you please.
I have it. They named the school and gave a description, and then they rated the school. And after doing all this, you know what their concluding paragraph was? That it was not the school that made the big difference, but the home. That's what these people authors of this study concluded.
After rating all these schools, they said, well, it what really matters is the home. Now if this is true and I say, who can who can dispute this? Who in god's earth can can say this is wrong? Who can deny that the family is not the core, the heart and the core of any of any society? And when you see what's happening to the family today, not that I agree in the least that it's on the way out, it's not on the way out, but it certainly is it has been weakened.
Substitutes are being sought for. Alternatives, we are told. Other choices, we are informed. Now if this is true, if the family is so important and today we are honoring Joaquin, Anne and Joaquin, the parents of Mary. Because all we know about them practically is that they are or were the parents of Mary.
She was their progeny. And we're told that parents are going to be glorified in their progeny forever. And so they are. And so today, when we honor these two saints, saints Anne and Joach im, you don't hear much about them today. I don't know much about them.
All I know is what I've read, and there's not much to read about them. I mean, if you're dealing with real texts, real sources. Nevertheless, something is here. Something is here for us to get a hold of. Whether we're parents or we're not parents, or whether we have been parents, or whether we will be parents, there is something here to realize that there's no vocation in the world can match it.
Saint Thomas dealt with this, you know, when he dealt took up this question, is the religious life better than the married life? And he said, well, in a sense it is, but in another sense it ain't. That's the English translation of the McAllister. And he's absolutely right. Theoretically, of course, if a if a person renounces everything in this world for God, in a sense, that's a higher vocation and someone says, I'll use the things in this world for God.
But in another sense, it isn't. In another and very real sense, it isn't. And it certainly is in is not in God's plan for everybody to be a celibate. If we carried out a plan if there ever had been such a plan and there there have been, you know, great and good Christians who thought that was God's plan, that the human race should be eliminated. This is the I mean, there's nothing you can name in the line of a heresy that hasn't been brought up in the Catholic church, believe me.
We have a collection that will just dazzle you. But the thing is that God's plan to have this world as it is. And as far as we can say, it's see, it's far from perfect. But it's it is perfect as for what he wants it to serve. And consequently, what is the heart of the of society?
Because one thing is sure, people live in society. Others have all kinds of explanations have been given, but the Aristotle was as close as anybody to the truth when he said it's an it's in the nature of man to be a social being. And the heart of that society of any sort is the family, is the family. And so today, when we honor these saints and they're great, not in their own right, but because of their daughter. Just because Mary isn't great in her own right, but because of her motherhood.
And so we honor today these parents of Mary, Joachim and Anne, and that we can pay tribute to man's truest vocation, to woman's truest vocation, to be a mother and a father. In the name of the father, of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.