Feast of the Holy Family

* A homily by Deacon Wayne Walker

St. John Paul II said that “The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family”.

Today’s feast of the Holy Family is both for us to celebrate the family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and also to do the best we can to model our own families after them.

None of us grew up in a perfect family and some of us may have even grown up in a family that was painful, but all of us can strive to be a closer resemblance to the Holy Family, whether we are a family of one or many. The ideal may be hard to attain but it shouldn’t change our determination to work together to be better.

We have a statue at the back of the church which represents the Holy Family. It has just the three of them depicted but they didn’t live in isolation. They lived among a community of family and friends. Today’s gospel tells the story of them travelling to Jerusalem and losing Jesus because the group they travelled with was so big that they thought he was with their relatives and acquaintances.

We might wonder how they could lose him but I can tell you from experience. We had 8 kids and have lost one more than once and I’ll bet that every parent here has too somewhere along the way. I can even remember as a kid once grabbing a hand in the grocery store and looking up to realize it was not my mother – scary. I was shorter then.

Once while visiting my in-laws in New Orleans we were getting all the kids rounded up to go somewhere and we couldn’t find one of the younger ones. The house was on a very busy street and we searched frantically looking for her only to find her hiding behind the gate on the driveway. She thought it was hugely funny.

We even lost one in the house once. Found her sound asleep on the floor next to the bed in a pillow case.

But when Jesus stays behind in the Temple, he wasn’t playing a joke or just asleep. The anguish of his parents can be felt.

The late author, Tim Russert, told a story about the Holy Family and his Jesuit education. 

A Jesuit, a Dominican, and a Franciscan were walking along an old road, debating the greatness of their orders. Suddenly, an apparition of the Holy Family appeared in front of them, with Jesus in a manger and Mary and Joseph praying over him.

The Franciscan fell on his face, overcome with awe at the sight of God born in such poverty. The Dominican fell to his knees, adoring the beautiful reflection of the Trinity and the Holy Family. The Jesuit walked up to Joseph, put his arm around his shoulder, and said, "So, have you thought about where to send the boy to school?"

As the gospel tells us Jesus was sitting in the midst of the teachers. He was in effect at school and preparing himself.

Mary and Joseph went up to Jerusalem each year – apparently Jesus had never disappeared on them before. But under Jewish law at 13 a boy became a man. So this was a very special occasion for Jesus. It probably wasn’t the first time that Jesus had been in Jerusalem for the Passover, but it would be the last time he would celebrate the feast as a child. 

There is a special emphasis on the importance of honoring one’s parents, which should extend into adulthood. Kindness to aged parents counterbalances one’s earlier sins, and the rewards of joy, long-life, and blessing are traditional biblical blessings and part of the Ten Commandments. A point of emphasis is that one’s treatment of parents is, at a deeper level, also an action toward God. His parents have an important part to play in Jesus’ mission, and he submits himself to them and honors them by being obedient. 

At this time of year many of us spend time with our families. Christmas is a time for families. But because of this, it can also be a time that we dread! Sometimes because we miss our families so much, but sometimes family-time can also be a time of tension and misunderstanding. 

So, we can take comfort in the picture of the Holy Family that is presented to us in today’s Gospel. There is misunderstanding, some tension between parents and a pre-adolescent child. These are all features of family life that we can easily recognize. 

But also present is listening, and above all, loving which we can also recognize. This is an essential element of family life. The family is called the “domestic Church” in the Catechism, since it is in the family – our first community and the one we never really leave behind – that we learn and grow, just as the Christ Child does in his Holy Family of Nazareth. 

In our families, we learn to trust others, we learn to speak and to behave, we learn about relating to others, and we learn to love both God and neighbor. Love can only be learned in community, never in isolation, or from a book. 

At baptism, our domestic family broadened, and we are re-born by grace into the family of the Church. Here, too, we learn as a community, as brothers and sisters with God our Father, to love him, to grow in wisdom and faith, and to love one another. As in our own families, we’ll find in the Church, tension and misunderstanding too. But we’ll also discover faith, growth through listening to the Word, and to one another, and we’ll find charity, love in the person of Jesus Christ. 

If the family is to be a place where love flourishes, we have to overcome selfishness and become a place where we accommodate and listen to each other. We’re told that Jesus was “obedient” to Mary and Joseph. The word ‘obedient’ comes from the Latin ‘audire’, meaning, ‘to listen’. So in the family we hope to find mutual listening. (Maybe part of the problems we find in our families, is that everyone is talking or looking at their smart phones and nobody is listening). So, the task is to make our families, and the Church, places of dialogue and of listening, places of growth in wisdom and understanding so that we can accommodate the other in love. And this can’t be done without sacrifice, and maybe some changes. 

To help us with those changes the Knights of Columbus have provided a prayer of Consecration to the Holy Family. It’s printed in your worship aid. The Knights purpose is to help strengthen families, revitalize our parishes, to invite each family in the parish to consecrate themselves to the Holy Family and to devote themselves to the ideal model of familial love set by Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Ultimately to help families live out the joy of Christ,

The word consecration literally means "association with the sacred", or “to make holy.” When one makes an act of consecration, it is made ultimately to God with the understanding that our consecration is a serious commitment on our part to respond faithfully to God’s grace at work in our lives.

It’s true that “The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family”.

Consecration to the Holy Family

O Lord Jesus, 

you lived in the home of Mary and Joseph in Nazareth.

There you grew in age, wisdom and grace 

as you prepared to fulfill your mission 

as our Redeemer. 

We entrust our family to you.

O Blessed Mary, 

you are the Mother of our Savior.

At Nazareth you cared for Jesus 

and nurtured him in the peace and joy of your home.

We entrust our family to you.

O Saint Joseph, 

you provided a secure and loving home for Jesus and Mary,

and gave us a model of fatherhood 

while showing us the dignity of work.

We entrust our family to you.

Holy Family, 

we consecrate ourselves and our family to you.

May we be completely united 

in a love that is lasting, faithful 

and open to the gift of new life.

Help us to grow in virtue, 

to forgive one another from our hearts,

and to live in peace all our days.

Keep us strong in faith, persevering in prayer, 

diligent in our work, and generous toward those in need.

May our home, O Holy Family, 

truly become a domestic church

where we reflect your example in our daily life. Amen.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pray for us!