Family

The other day I came across an old photograph.

My distant cousin, Joe Schulte, sent it to me a few years ago.

It’s a group portrait of about 50 people gathered and posed on their lawn.

Joe said it was taken in my home town—Covington, Kentucky—in 1910.

At a gathering of the Bockweg family.

Joe’s great grandmother was a Bockweg girl, Elizabeth, who married into the Schulte family.

So Joe and I share her father, Heinrich Bockweg, as a great-great grandfather.

(I think that makes us 3^rd cousins.)

When we look at this picture, there’s Heinrich, 87 years old and seated in the center of the group.

Joe sent me the picture because he didn’t know who all the people were.

And he was looking for help in tracking down some of the names.

1910 happens to have been a census year.

So we know many of the names of the people who are probably in that picture.

We just don’t know who’s who.

My grandfather was 12 years old at the time, so he's probably one of the young boys.

And my great grandfather is probably one of the middle-aged men.

We know from the census data that his wife isn’t in the picture—she died before 1910.

Most families have old pictures like this, or old documents, or an old Bible with names.

Why do we even care about our families from over100 years ago?

These people we can’t even identify.

Well, looking back at our ancestors brings a sense of belonging.

A sense of our place in a continuing history.

It also helps to ground us in our true roots.

It brings us closer to those to whom we owe our very existence.

I knew my grandparents, but I know only a little about those who came before them.

It seems that none were especially rich or famous.

But they seem to have been mostly bright, hard-working, good people.

I’m happy with that family.

And it’s a good thing that I am.

Because there’s an old saying,

You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.

But really, that’s only partly true.

As Jesus tells us today, we can choose to be recognized members of his family.

True family—like his mother and those he grew up calling his brothers and sisters.

We can return to our most true roots.

We can draw closer to the one who really gave us our very existence.

If we can just try to hear his word—and act on it.

Tuesday, 25th Week of  Ordinary Time

Lk 8:19-21         Read this Scripture @usccb.org