The Holy Family

We belong to many families – The Human Family – The Church Family – and our individual families. There are other groups or individuals who treat us like family and we have a close affiliation with them. On the Feast of the Holy Family we are invited to reflect in the light of faith on the quality of our own family life.

The family landscape has changed over the years. There are many single parent families, many blended families, several generations living under one roof, more working moms, and a host of distractions impacting on the quality of time and common interest of the family unit. The “Family Meal” and the “Family Prayer Time” have taken a beating. In spite of all the changes in the size and complexity of the family unit, it is still the most important cell of society. It is critical to the parish life and has potential for enormous good. When family life breaks down, not only members of the family suffer but also the family of faith – the Church – suffers and the society suffers.

The family has been designated as “the domestic church.” If our church family is a place where ideally we experience a genuine sense of love, friendship, and mutual support, surely our individual families are the first place where we experience love, caring, sharing, support and friendship. In the Christian family, we are loved, respected, cared for and supported. It is in this setting that we experience God’s Love. When we are loved by our parents, God is loving us through them. It is in our homes and in our families that our faith is nurtured. If there are no prayers or no religious instruction in the home, it is difficult – if not impossible – for religious teachers to instill a love for God and his truth into the hearts of our children. If the faith is not important to the parents, by and large it’s not going to be important for the children.

Our homes should be “little churches” where love, faith, prayers, sharing and caring are practiced and encouraged. For some families there is a very sad part of family life. Some families have to struggle with abuse. It goes without saying that anyone who believes in God as Christ can have nothing to do with violence or abuse. Every family member is a child of God, a unique and precious person made in God’s image and likeness. We are responsible to each other, and we cannot stand by while any violence is perpetrated on any member of our family. We need to know that help is available.

The Church places before us today the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary & Joseph, not as a judgment of our many failings, but as an encouragement to keep on loving each other in spite of all the imperfections and limitations which we see in each other. It’s not the perfection of the Holy Family, or the personalities that make it up that we focus on today, but their love for each other – a love that makes them holy. The scripture encourages us not to give up on each other, but to love, trust, and be patient. Where there is love, the difficult times and the hard choices will be easier. None of our families are all holy; all are in a mixture of all sorts of conflicts, compulsions, and craziness that tests our love and forgiveness. But in the middle of all that there is God. This is where he is to be found.