I grew up in a family that would be unusual in today's world. I was the eldest of seven children, born to my mother and father. We were born in less than ten years, so the energy level in the house was very high. My parents were married 53 years, until my father's death six years ago. My mother, at 83, still lives in our original home. She points out that she has only lived in two houses her entire life – the one she grew up in and the one she moved into after her marriage in 1954. My maternal grandmother lived with us for the last six or seven years of her life.
Whenever I return to the house, I marvel that seven children and three adults could have managed to live there. For a start, it had just one bathroom. The boys shared a bedroom and the girls another. We were all getting ready for school or work at the same time. Perhaps I have a selective memory, but I don’t recall any raging fights, just the usual squabbles. Needless to say, there was a lot of sharing and hand-me-downs. How is it that we still manage to get along and we are all healthy! Whenever I deal with the political and social realities of life in Jesuit community and in any ministry, I am grateful that I grew up in a large energetic family where I had to let go of my own ego, because I was just one of seven children.
Even more unusual in our world, I grew up in a neighbourhood that included several similar situations – large families with tight indoor space. And we still get along. Other than one person, the children are alive and well. I'd tend to say that my closest friends are the people I grew up with: playing indoor and outdoor games, getting in trouble with, going to school and Mass with and being called from our play to join in the Marshalls' evening ritual of praying the Rosary. There was a tremendous level of cooperation in the neighbourhood. I have a vivid memory of several fathers renting a portable cement mixer and over a series of days helping each other build sidewalks and retaining walls. I also have many memories of the various families running low on sugar or other goods and running next door to borrow something.
The Office of Readings for the Feast of the Holy Family includes a beautiful excerpt of an address given by 
Pope Paul VI when he visited Nazareth in 1964: “Nazareth is a kind of school where we may begin to discover what Christ’s life was like.” It is here that we get intimate knowledge of what made Jesus the person he was. It is in Nazareth that we learn about family life and about work and the discipline it entails. When we reflect on our own upbringing, we discover that even our ordinary, but unholy, families can teach us significant things. My family upbringing was a kind of school. I can't even begin to enumerate the many valuable life lessons I learned through my own upbringing, lessons that have allowed me to live a rich life. Pope Paul VI laments on “how I would like to return to my childhood and attend the simple yet profound school that is Nazareth!” We cannot return, but we can continue to let our childhood educate us.