THE FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY [C] 

(1Sm 1:20-22, 24-28; 1Jn 3:1-2, 21-24; Lk 2:41-52)

Today’s feast reminds us that Jesus chose to live in an ordinary human family in order to reveal God’s plan to make all people live as one “holy family” in His Church. In today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 128), the psalmist reminds us that happy homes are the fruit of our faithfulness to the Lord.

 Today’s Gospel describes the fifth joyful mystery in the Holy Rosary. Only St Luke (2:41-50) reports the event of the child Jesus’ disappearing and then being found in the Temple. Jewish boys were made “sons of the Law” by presenting themselves in the Temple of Jerusalem when they become twelve years old.

After telling us how the boy Jesus disappeared on the journey home and was only found by his frantic parents three days later in the Temple, today’s Gospel explains how the Holy Family of Nazareth lived according to the will of God. They themselves obeyed all the Jewish laws and regulations and brought Jesus up in the same way, so that he grew in wisdom as well as in the favor of God and men. Jesus’ obedience to his earthly parents flows directly from His obedience to the will of his Heavenly Father.

 Jesus was telling them that his earthly life involved an obedience to more than earthly parents. They did not then understand the full implications of what divine Sonship would entail, namely, that in terms of his mission, His relationship to God would necessarily take precedence over his relationship to them. One of a parent’s greatest sorrows afflicted Mary: not to understand her own child; this was one of the swords spoken of by Simeon (Luke 2:35). Jesus by his bewildered counter-question teaches us that over and above any human authority, even that of our parents, there is the primary duty to do the will of God. At this stage in Jesus life, “doing the will of his Heavenly Father” entailed obedience to Mary and Joseph, and Jesus willingly complied: “He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”

By the Sacrament of marriage, Jesus sanctifies not only the spouses but also the entire family. The husband and wife attain holiness when they discharge their duties faithfully, trusting in God, and drawing on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit through personal and family prayer, meditative reading of the Bible, and devout participation in Holy Mass.  Families become holy when Christ Jesus is present in them. Jesus becomes truly present in the parish Church through the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.  

This is the quality Pope St. Paul VI found most inspiring in the Holy Family. They lived a hidden life, a quiet life, a life with lots of room for thinking. With TV, radio and the Internet clogging our minds and senses, we leave our families little room for thought or prayer. We need to do what it takes to bring silence home — move the TV so that it’s not the centerpiece of our household; turn it off when no one’s watching. This is guaranteed to reduce family stress levels.

We need to make our home a place of prayer. Our day needn’t be dominated by devotions, but we should have some regular, routine family prayers, just as the Holy Family did. They prayed and studied the Scriptures, but still managed to get their work done. 

The Little Flower used to ask an innocent question of her first grader classmates: “Have you ever seen a Saint praying?”  She would add: “If you haven’t, come to my house in the evening.  You will see my dad on his knees in his room with outstretched arms, praying for us, his children, every day.”  She states in one of her letters from the convent: “I have never seen or heard or experienced anything displeasing to Jesus in my family.”  St. Teresa of Avila was admitted against her will, by her father, to a boarding house conducted by nuns in the final year of her high school studies, as soon as he detected bad books and yellow magazines hidden in her box. They were supplied by her spoiled friend and classmate, Beatrice.   St. Teresa later wrote as the Mother Superior: “But for that daring and timely action of my father, I would have ended up in the streets, as a notorious woman.” The feast of the Holy Family challenges Christian fathers to be role models to their children.

Let us pray for the grace of caring for one another in our own families, for each member of the parish family, and for all families of the universal Church. May God bless all our families in the New Year.