Why Every Catholic Home Needs an Extra Chair at the Table This Holiday Season

In a world of shrinking circles, real love expands the table. That’s what Christ’s family, the Church, has always done.

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“Mom, is Tía Gina your sister or Dad’s?” a bright-eyed young André asked his mom.

“Well, neither. She’s not actually related to us at all,” came the reply.

After all those years, I was confused to say the least — who was “Aunt” Gina, after all? Since when do high school best friends automatically become aunts and uncles??

The first domino having fallen, the rest soon followed, and I learned that other uncles, aunts and cousins were not so — they were dear family friends, decades-long connections, that had somehow been elevated to “family” status.

But how could that be? Shouldn’t “family” be family?

I’ve wrestled with that question since — what is family?

If only the people related to me by blood or marriage were family, then Tía Gina and all the other aunts, uncles and cousins would fall by the wayside, and my village would shrink to a pair.

But what if family could be something broader, especially during the holidays — something we build as well as something we’re born into?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “the human person needs life in society. Society is not for him an extraneous addition but a requirement of his nature” (CCC 1879).

In short, "it is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). We're called to community, to love one another and to walk with each other towards Jesus. And sometimes, as we draw nearer in community, friendships take on the warmth and steadiness of family.

“And who is my neighbor?”

One day, a scholar of the law came to Jesus and asked what he must do to reach Heaven. Presented with the two-fold greatest commandment to love God and neighbor, St. Luke the Evangelist tells us he “wished to justify himself” and asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25ff). What follows is one of the greatest parables: that of the Good Samaritan.

Robbers leave a man half-dead by the side of the road. Lying in his misery, he is ignored by his confreres: a priest and a Levite. But a Samaritan passerby sees him and is “moved with compassion at the sight” (Luke 10:33). Approaching the victim, the Samaritan picks him up, helps him and takes him to an inn for continued care.

“Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” Jesus asked the scholar.

“The one who treated him with mercy,” came the reply.

“Go and do likewise,” Jesus exhorted.

And who is my family?

The Parable of the Good Samaritan shows us what it means to be a community, to care for each other, to serve each other in humility. It shows us what it means to be a family in a broader sense of the word.

Now, let me be clear: this does not take away from the dignity of the vocation of Matrimony.

As the “original cell of social life,” the family of husband, wife and children is a microcosm of the world, serving as “the foundations for freedom, security and fraternity within society” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2207).

“The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God and make good use of freedom,” the Catechism continues. “Family life is an initiation into life in society.”

Our immediate families are supreme gifts from the Lord, as imperfect as they may be. They are often the primary means by which God asks us to draw near to him, through loving, merciful service to them.

Those family units are often under all sorts of pressures, which may just tempt us to circle the wagons, hunker down and deal with things internally.

But if our compassionate care stops at the roots and branches of our family tree, at people who love us and share our genetics or name, “what credit is that to [us]? Even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:32).

As Catholic Christians, baptized into Christ’s Body, the Church, we also have a duty to love our spiritual family, our brothers and sisters in Christ, not to mention each of God’s children, no matter how far they may be from that Body.

Family is bigger than “family,” and living that in the light, joy, hope, mercy and love of Christ might just be the most countercultural reality we can engage. After all, the early Christians stood out like sore thumbs in their own culture because of the way that they, as a community, as a Church, loved each other.

Who’s around the table this Thanksgiving and Christmas?

As we put together our guest lists for the family holiday festivities, we might consider who our family is in the broader sense of the term.

Who are the individuals in your community who are like family to you?

Who are those people who might be spending the holidays alone, without a family?

Who is part of the “village” that it takes to raise your family?

Now, before this single introvert gets an overwhelming number of holiday invitations, a quick clarification: I don’t just mean your single Catholic young adult friends. What about the widows and widowers in your parish? How about the middle-aged single person in the pew behind you? What about your priest or seminarian? Perhaps the religious sister or brother? Or the consecrated man or woman in your community?

Who’s around your table this Thanksgiving and Christmas? Is it the same closed circle?

Or might your family go “on mission” this holiday season by inviting a new face or two?

Real Love is Evangelizing

I’m grateful for the married couples and families in my life that do this well. More than just a guest in their home, I’m “Uncle André,” and I get to help with bedtime routines, outdoor adventures and Christmas unboxing. I get adorable hand-drawn cards, lengthy life updates from the mouths of babes and beautiful, childlike prayers.

Even amid the slobber and spit up, these families and these children teach me more than I could ever recount — and I’m more grateful than I can ever put to words. They go “on mission” to love me, and I get to join them in their mission to love each other.

Real, Christlike love is inherently evangelizing.

When we encounter the love of God in another person, neither person remains unchanged.

When we meet the hope of God in another person, we can’t help but raise our eyes to Heaven in gratitude.

When we see the joy of God in another person, our hearts might just grow three sizes in an instant.

By sharing the joys and challenges, the blessings and struggles, of family life with “Uncle” André, these friends and couples reflect the light of Christ to me. They evangelize me. And I hope I’m able to support them in their own vocations, as part of their “villages,” through my love for each of them, too.

We’re not meant to go at this Christian life alone.

So, this Thanksgiving and Christmas, grab the extra leaf for the kitchen table. Dust off the folding tables and chairs. Expand the circle as wide as you can.

If nothing else, those extra guests can entertain your mother-in-law. At best, you might just find your own village along the way.