Dear Family,
Each week I begin the Twitch with ‘Dear Family.’ Today is the Feast of the Holy Family. For the fun of it, I took a trip to one of my favorite language sites: https://www.etymonline.com and checked out “family.”

Boy, was I surprised! I won’t quote the whole thing, but here are a few snippets:

early 15c., "servants of a household," from Latin familia "family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household," thus also "members of a household, the estate, property; the household, including relatives and servants," abstract noun formed from famulus "servant, slave," which is of unknown origin.

Dear Family,
Six days before Christmas! All the merchants are telling us we still have time to get in the extra shopping to take care of the stuff and/or people we forgot. Years ago, my brothers and sisters decided that we would not do Christmas presents. Since there are seven of us, before you even got to anyone else, you’d have a pile of gifts to take care of. (Birthdays, however, are okay!)

Although I confess to working at finding easy ways of shopping online, I get a kick out of giving the gift. We would ask Mom what she would like for Christmas, and her constant and inevitable answer was always, “Good Children.” We kept looking anyway, because sometimes it was easier to buy a present, rather than be good. In truth, however, my brothers and sisters are good people, and good people to know. It breaks my heart to hear of problems that families have at times.

Dear Family,
As I write, (last Wednesday), I’m still floating in the wake of pulling together your synod responses.

When I say floating, I’m thinking I might have used “fogging” instead. But the product of your work – those of you who participated at the tables, or in written responses (12), - was really good.

Maryellen Maher, Ed and Jill Rebholz (our Synod representatives) as well as Annie Gardner and I each made a summary of your table responses.

We will meet to merge our five summaries. Our report and those of the other parishes and diocesan ministries will come together and be given to Archbishop Wenski who in turn gives it to the other U.S. bishops, who then combine and finally send it to Pope Francis. (Gasp and pant.)

Dear Family,
Wednesday is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What does that mean? It means that when Mary was conceived in the womb of her mother Ann, unlike every one of us, she was without the mark of original sin that we inherited from Adam and Eve. Why? Her womb would become the sacred place where Mary would conceive Jesus under the power of the Holy Spirit.

“The person of Mary, (because) of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin.” - NewAdvent.org

God made Mary the perfection of humanity in order that she might receive the perfection of divinity. I just made that line up, and I hope it will withstand the scrutiny of any good theologian.