The Feast of the Holy Family (2024)
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
And be thankful.
—Colossians 3:12-15
During his historic trip to the Holy Land in 1964, Pope Paul VI reflected, “Nazareth is a kind of school where we may begin to discover what Christ’s life was like and even to understand the Gospel. Here we can observe and ponder the simple appeal of the way God’s Son came to be known, profound yet full of hidden meaning. And gradually we may even learn to imitate him” (Address on Nazareth). The Church has consistently understood that, through Jesus’ hidden life with Mary and Joseph in Nazareth, God blessed the family, which shares in the Church’s prophetic task of proclaiming “aloud both the present power of the Kingdom of God and the hope of the blessed life” (Lumen Gentium, 35).
This Sunday’s celebration of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, is much more than a child’s celebration of an outdated devotion or Christmas card sentimentality. As the Collect for this Feast observes, we honor the example of the Holy Family and ask for the grace to imitate them “in practicing the virtues of family life and in the bonds of charity.”
While this feast certainly invites us to reflect on these familial bonds, the Gospel for this Feast also invites us to reflect on Mary’s contemplative spirit, as she prays over and processes the discovery of Jesus in the Temple and, we can assume, the whole Christmas mystery. It was in and through this Holy Family that Mary experienced God’s love in the love of her husband and Son and in her experience of loving the Joseph and Jesus.
The family was that sacred space of grace. This is why Pope Francis has reflected,
In the loving obedience of this woman, Mary, and this man, Joseph, we have a family into which God comes. God always knocks on the doors of our hearts. He likes to do that. He goes out from within. But do you know what he likes best of all? To knock on the doors of families. And to see families which are united, families which love, families which bring up their children, educating them and helping them to grow, families which build a society of goodness, truth and beauty
Families are an indispensable part of God’s plan for our lives. Whether these are our biological families or families we’ve chosen for ourselves (including families of faith and religious communities), God speaks to us in and through these relationships, just as he did with the Holy Family in the hidden, everyday-ness of Nazareth.
Ultimately, it’s our experience of this love that leads us into ever-deepening relationships with God and one another: “Put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful” (Colossians 3:14-15). And yet, this “putting on love” means saying “Yes” to the Mystery of Christmas and to God’s vision for our lives and for all of creation. As Henri Nouwen wrote in The Road to Daybreak:
Somehow I realized that songs, music, good feelings, beautiful liturgies, nice presents, big dinners, and many sweet words do not make Christmas. Christmas is saying “yes” to something beyond all emotions and feelings. Christmas is saying “yes” to a hope based on God’s initiative, which has nothing to do with what I think or feel. Christmas is believing that the salvation of the world is God’s work and not mine. Things will never look just right or feel just right… But it is into this broken world that a child is born who is called Son of the Most High Prince of Peace, Savior.
Mary and Joseph instilled in the Child Jesus a love for the traditions and laws of God’s Chosen People; we share the same gifts with our families and friends when we open our hearts to the “Yes” of these holy days.
Amid the noise, busy-ness and unrest that threaten to drown out angels’ songs in these Christmas days, this Feast of the Holy Family reminds us of the true vocation of the family: to foster the faith of each of its members and to support them in their search for God and God’s will for them.
O God, who were pleased to give us
the shining example of the Holy Family,
graciously grant that we may imitate them
in practicing the virtues of family life and in the bonds of charity,
and so, in the joy of your house,
delight one day in eternal rewards.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
