Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph! It is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas, unless Christmas is on a Sunday, then it is on December 30.
Reading 1SIR 3:2-6, 12-14
God sets a father in honor over his children;
a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.
Whoever honors his father atones for sins,
and preserves himself from them.
When he prays, he is heard;
he stores up riches who reveres his mother.
Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children,
and, when he prays, is heard.
Whoever reveres his father will live a long life;
he who obeys his father brings comfort to his mother.
My son, take care of your father when he is old;
grieve him not as long as he lives.
Even if his mind fail, be considerate of him;
revile him not all the days of his life;
kindness to a father will not be forgotten,
firmly planted against the debt of your sins
—a house raised in justice to you.
GospelMT 2:13-15, 19-23
When the magi had departed, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,
and stay there until I tell you.
Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.”
Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night
and departed for Egypt.
He stayed there until the death of Herod,
that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled,
Out of Egypt I called my son.
When Herod had died, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream
to Joseph in Egypt and said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel,
for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
He rose, took the child and his mother,
and went to the land of Israel.
But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea
in place of his father Herod,
he was afraid to go back there.
And because he had been warned in a dream,
he departed for the region of Galilee.
He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth,
so that what had been spoken through the prophets
might be fulfilled,
He shall be called a Nazorean.
The Feast of the Holy Family reminds us that Family is important. God made sure, Jesus had an earthly foster father, even though God was/is His Father. Elsewhere in scripture is says; He was know to be the son of Joseph the carpenter. Below is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Family:
1655
Christ chose to be born and grow up in the bosom of the
holy family of Joseph and Mary. The Church is nothing other than
“the family of God.” From the beginning, the core of the Church
was often constituted by those who had become believers “together
with all [their] household.”
166
When they were converted, they
desired that “their whole household” should also be saved.
167
These families who became believers were islands of Christian life
in an unbelieving world.
1656
In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to
faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living,
radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an
ancient expression, calls the family the
Ecclesia domestica.
168
It is in the
bosom of the family that parents are “by word and example . . . the
first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should
encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, foster-
ing with special care any religious vocation.”
169
1657
It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children,
and all members of the family exercise the
priesthood of the baptized
in
a privileged way “by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and
thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active
charity.”
170
Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and “a
school for human enrichment.”
171
Here one learns endurance and the
joy of work, fraternal love, generous—even repeated—forgiveness,
and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one’s life.
Pray for those who are married, those engaged to be married and those who feel called to marriage!