If I asked the size of your family how would you respond? Would you say large, small or nonexistent? A friend recently told me she had 40 first cousins. Someone I knew a few years ago has no one; not a single living relative.
I have one living brother and three siblings I hope to meet in Heaven some day. There are a few first cousins who I can count on both hands. Some of my closet relatives are second and third cousins but those are relatively few in number too. I find it interesting a handful of my Catholic friends have trouble with the first names of relatives once they surpass the triple-digit mark.
While the number will vary for each of us, I realized yesterday I was standing in the midst of a few hundred people I could call family for seventy short minutes.
The dictionary app I have on my phone provides eight definitions for the word “family.” Number four may be the most common, defining family as “people descended from a common ancestor.” But the one that I felt best defined my family on Thursday was “a collection of people sharing a common attribute.”
It was a gathering where I didn’t know many people. I may have known 30 or 40 and recognized another couple of dozen. Some probably knew most everyone there and saw only 20 or 30 strangers.
When leaving it dawned on me those same people will never congregate under the same roof again; at least not for the same purpose. The few that are closest will stay in contact for the rest of their lives because the event that brought us together has welded itself in their soul. The rest of us will recall the tragic circumstances, and hopefully reflect on the emotion and gravity of the situation. My prayer is we find encouragement and hope as well.
If you ask me the size of my family next week my response will probably fall back to some small number. During this season of Lent let’s remember if we allow ourselves to be in God’s presence the size of our family is infinite and growing stronger each day.
Welcome to the family. I’m honored on be in yours too.
