Christmas is a family time. At this time of the year, many families come to spend much time together, to enjoy each other’s company, to relax together and to have special meals together. It is a beautiful time for all of us. But sometimes it is not easy to deal with many people in the house. One time, on the last weekend of the year, I was speaking to a friend of mine who has a large family. I asked him how his Christmas had been. He said, “There’s been so much noise and excitement in the house that I’ve had a headache for a week.” I said to him, “Well, what do you do about that?” He said, “I grab the Tylenol and do just what it says on the bottle:—“Take two pills every four hours,” and—“Keep away from children”.
I tell you this story because I know that family life is not easy. Most the time we experience happiness and joy. But sometimes things go wrong, we drive each other crazy. Marriages don’t always work out. Our families are not what they should be. Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We call them the Holy Family but that does not mean that they did not have problems. Just as every family as to face problems and overcome them, the Holy Family also had to carry crosses. Just remember when Joseph was planning to divorce Mary , then the family had to flee to Egypt , when the young Jesus was lost for three days, when Mary watched Jesus dying on the cross. But despite of all the trials and crosses , the Holy Family remained united.
Today the Church sets Jesus, Mary and Joseph before us as a model of what our families should be like. This is not a coincidence. It is part of the Christmas story. We can learn Christian values from the Holy Family that can guide our families and help us to face the challenges. Now, this Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is Holy is because God was at the center of their lives . They put God first in everything and do His holy will whatever happens. This is the secret. This is the key. So, by putting God first in our lives, ever thing else in life will fall into place. By putting God first in our lives , everything else flowed from that greatest quality : Love, sacrifice, forgiveness, compassion and patience. We can see that in the life of the Holy Family. Joseph is open to God. He receives the inspiration from God and he acts on it. That is a very important lesson for our families as well.
How often in our families do we take time to talk about God and deep our relationship with God? For Joseph, the decisions they made were guided by the will of God. This means allowing God to help us to make decision for family. This means feeding families with prayers, Eucharist and sacraments. Today’s feast is time for each family to reflect and go back to the Holy Family of Nazareth and learn from them.
On other side, we are aware of the fact that the family right now is facing many challenges. I want to mention some: I believe that the greatest threat facing families now is that we don’t spend enough time together. We are so busy working and we have less time for each other. The other challenge is the obedience. What about parents and children ? Sometimes, I have the impression that we need to change the fourth commandment and say : Parents obey your children. Once I saw a child telling his parents : It is not me who is looking for parents. It is you, parents are looking for a child. Sad situation. The next one is about religious tradition. For example tradition to pray rosary. How many children , young people follow the religion of their parents ? My brothers and sisters, none of us come from perfect families, but that does not matter. What is important is not how we should be, but how open we are to change. If we are listening and open, then the Lord cab lead us. All God needs is our openness. God knows well that we often mess up, but that is not important. The only thing that is important is that we are willing to get up again, to begin again and turn to the Lord for help. We pray today for our families around the world, especially the broken families, we ask God to help us to imitate the example of the Holy Family of Jesus , Mary and Joseph.
