Merry Christmas to all of you! Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The celebration of this feast is always most important for us because it serves as a reminder of the Holy Family and thus how our own families on this earth should be centered around them. In our world today we see a shortage of vocations: vocations to the religious life and priesthood, but we also cannot forget placing vocations to marriage on this list. We also see families who have grown apart to the point where individuals live within a home instead of a family who is drawn together. We are given the impression that for those who do enter into marriage that it can easily be thrown away with divorce, or that in order to truly get to know someone you must live with them first outside of the bonds of marriage.
When we reflect upon the Holy Family one of the many things that we should envision is love. The Holy Family had a profound sense of love not only for each other, but most importantly they had a love for God from which all the actions of their life flowed. The Holy Family never attempted to live out the family life exempt from their love for God, but instead this love for God was always placed front and center in their life. How was it then that God chose to dwell among us in the Incarnation? He chose to come as a child, poor and defenseless, born to a woman, and entered into the love of a family. Here He gave us a foreshadowing of how all of our love should be a participation of the love that is found in the three Persons of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we observe in our Gospel in the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple; Mary and Joseph were dedicated to their faith and thus to God when they brought their Son to be presented in the temple as is prescribed by Jewish law. May our families too decide not to dedicate themselves to the passing things of this world, but instead to be dedicated to love for God and His Law which allows us to live freely.
One of the questions I always ask a couple who I am preparing for the Sacrament of Marriage is what is the Domestic Church? At this question I am usually met with the eyes of a deer staring into headlights because they have no clue what this means. I believe one of the greatest challenges to the family life in this day and age is caused from the breakdown of the Domestic Church. We think that Church is the hour that we spend here and it should be segregated from the other 167 hours of the week. If this is the case it is no wonder why children no longer practice the faith, it is no wonder why marriages begin to fall apart, it is no wonder why we live in a vocation crisis on all levels, and it is no wonder why society no longer wants to speak of God. The Domestic Church is to live out what is found within the Holy Family which is a love directed towards God in all things. It is to promote prayer in the home among the family, it is to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass together, it is to go to confession coming as a family, it is to pray before the Blessed Sacrament as a family, it is to promote vocations within the home, it is to educate children in the faith more so then dropping them off for Religious Education on a Wednesday night, and most importantly it is to have a love for God and His Son Jesus Christ, who came to dwell among us in the second Person of the Holy Trinity; as we celebrate in this Christmas season.
One practice that many families have is to request a priest to come over and bless their home. At the home the priest offers a prayer of blessing and then moves throughout the home blessing each room with Holy Water. This is an important statement of faith because through this blessing the family is asking that everything that takes place within these walls may be directed towards their love for God. The water sprinkled serves as a reminder of baptism and thus the commitments that were made to God on that day. The commitment was not live out life as if it were unchanged, but instead it was a commitment to be dedicated to God in all things.
The struggles to the family life are indeed abundant within this society, but they can be overcome with our sight directed towards the love of God. The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph serve as a testimony to this truth. May we allow ourself to follow after them and the love that sends them forth to discover what it truly means to be a family held in communion with each other by God. Yes, hardships will arise within our life and within this world, but despite all of these hardships God took on our human flesh and came to dwell among us and in return sanctified the family life to be the path that would lead souls to discover Him and thus to be lead into Heaven. May we indeed allow ourself to follow after this path of love that has been opened wide to us by the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
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