by Deacon Michael Bickerstaff | December 29, 2024 1:00 am
“Jesus sanctified and elevated the family, set apart for noble and holy purpose. Ultimately, the Holy Family is a sign for us that we are all a part of God’s family the Church, brothers and sisters of our Father in Heaven.”
Merry Christmas!
During the Christmas season, we celebrate many important feasts and memorials. Today’s Feast celebrates the holiness and joy of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph of Nazareth.
By celebrating this feast during the Christmas season, the Church wants us to see the profound link between the birth of our Savior and the family.
Saint John Paul II had this to say of the Holy Family, “the humble dwelling place in Nazareth is an authentic school of the Gospel. Here we admire, put into practice, the divine plan to make the family an intimate community of life and love; here we learn that every Christian family is called to be a small “domestic church” that must shine with the Gospel virtues.”
Family life is so important. In recent weeks, many of us have taken part in treasured family activities and customs. These cherished traditions remind us of what can be the beautiful nature of our families.
Each of us, to some degree, is a product of the family in which we were raised.
We all know that our families are not perfect, sometimes far from it. But, God intends the family to be the setting where most people first encounter the Risen Lord and first experience his love.
This love of God is to be modeled within the family by the love of mother and father for one another and their love for their children.
The way that a mom and dad care for their children and the care and respect they show to those outside the family should reflect the kindness and care that God shows to each of us.
I was blessed beyond measure by the parents God gave me.
Their love of God, their trustful surrender to Jesus were powerful examples for me. Love of the bible, the Eucharist, and His Church, devotion to Mary, and love of family and friends—these were precisely the gifts the Lord asked my parents to pass on to me. I am so thankful for their love and sacrifice.
Like all families, ours had its challenges.
My Baptist father and Catholic mother shared a great love, but they also knew the religious prejudices of their time; they experienced the hardships of the great depression and a world at war; they knew the joy of a son and daughter but also the heartache of multiple miscarriages; and our family experienced a great sorrow when my father died far too young. I was just 16.
For some, family life is very different from the life of the Holy Family.
Some are raised in families where both parents aren’t present. Some are raised in families where faith is not present. Some are raised in families where love is not present.
No matter the circumstances of your family, God loves you as a good father and desires more for you. You are part of God’s family and you are a member of the family of St. Peter Chanel.
Ultimately it is important that each of us respond to the challenges of family life and strive to remain steadfast in the love and light of Christ. And parents, please make handing on the faith to your children a top priority.
Each year, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus, to both celebrate their lives and to remind us that our family also is to be holy.
Joan Watson, Associate Editor of the Integrated Catholic Life, writes,
“God became man and became friends with people like us. He was born of a woman like me. He grew up in a home, played with his neighbors, and worked with his dad. God did all of these things. For me… And so Christ comes and walks and drinks and laughs and cries with us—ultimately, to suffer with us. For us. Because of us.”
– Joan Watson
Everything Jesus did was done for our benefit. He could have arrived in any number of ways, but He chose to come as a vulnerable and humble baby, truly conceived in and born of the Virgin Mary, and raised in a home provided for by Joseph and Mary.
Jesus came to make all things new to rescue mankind and His very first act was to renew the family, to sanctify it, and to set it apart for holiness.
The Holy Family, like yours and mine, knew and experienced hardships and tensions. There is much we can learn about remaining faithful to God through the difficult experiences of their family life.
The Holy Family knew hardship yet remained steadfast in God’s love. It is for our families to imitate their model if we are to know joy and peace in this life and attain holiness and salvation for ourselves and for our children. This life on earth is our pilgrimage to our true home in Heaven.
Joseph and Mary taught Jesus, experientially, the traditional prayers and piety of His people, passed on their cherished customs, showed him the greatest example of love and affection within the family, gave to Him a skill and trade to help support the family.
In His public ministry, Jesus taught with words and examples taken from his early and hidden family life. In the lessons He taught, we discover the great love and courage that St. Joseph must have exhibited for Jesus and His Blessed Mother; the tender love and care that must have been shared between mother and son.
We are called to do the same for our children who will then imitate that love when they grow up.
By meditating on the life of the Holy Family, we discover peace and joy within the home, and are equipped to share that peace and joy with those around us.
St. Paul gives us a description of the qualities of the Holy Family that we should strive for in our own. We should strive to be compassionate and kind, patient, forgiving and bearing with one another. He says that we need to “put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.”
Jesus sanctified and elevated the family, set apart for noble and holy purpose. Ultimately, the Holy Family is a sign for us that we are all a part of God’s family the Church, brothers and sisters of our Father in Heaven.
Ask Jesus into your heart every day. Through the intercession of St. Joseph and Our Blessed Mother, place Jesus at the center of your family every day.
Into the deep…
Image credit: “The Holy Family with dog” (detail) by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo | Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons[1]
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