Homilies
December 28, 2025
Feast of the Holy Family
Feast of the Holy Family
A primary school teacher asked her pupils to write an essay on, “A wish you want from God?” At the end of the day, the teacher collected all the essays from her pupils and began reading them. After reading a particular one she decided to send it to the pupil’s parents.
The mother opened the essay and began to read it while watching television. While reading it she became very emotional and began to cry. Her husband came and sat beside her and asked what was making her cry and she answered, read this essay.
“Oh, God, please make me into a TV. In my house, the TV is very popular. All of my family members are very interested in it and watching TV makes my parents very happy. The TV is the center of attraction in my house and I want to receive the same special care and attention the TV receives from my parents. They don’t shout at the TV. They don’t quarrel with the TV. They don’t slap the TV. They don’t demean and embarrass the TV.
When my parents come home they immediately switch the TV on and spend hours watching it. While watching it my parents smile and laugh a lot. I want my parents to laugh and smile a lot with me also. God the TV steals my parents time with me. So if I become a TV then they will spend their time with me. So please God make me a TV because if I become a TV, surely I can make my parents happy and entertain them. Lord I promise I won’t ask you for anything more.”
After reading the essay the husband said wow, poor kid! He feels lonely. He doesn’t get enough love, care and attention from his parents. His parents are horrible! Still teary eyed she looked at her husband and said, our son wrote this essay.
On the last Sunday of the year, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. The Church encourages us to look to the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for inspiration, example and encouragement. They were a model family in which both parents worked hard, helped each other, understood and accepted each other and took good care of their child so that he might grow up not only in human knowledge but also as a child of God.
Today’s scripture passages confirm this. The first reading is a treatise on the 4th commandment: “Honor your father and your mother.” The author of Sirach, Ben Sira, has many good things to say about living virtuously. Sirach reminds children of their duty to honor their parents at all times even when it becomes difficult. He also mentions the two-fold reward which God promises to those who honor their parents. The first reward is “riches,” and the second, long life: “Whoever reveres his father will live a long life.” He reminds children God will bless them if they obey, revere and show compassion to their father. Honoring parents atones for sins.
St Paul, in his letter to the Colossians gives us part of what is called the “Household Code” – the rules of engagement for members of a Christian family. Paul teaches we should learn and practice noble qualities like compassion, kindness, forgiveness and sharing in the warmth of the family. In a truly holy family all members are respected, cherished, nurtured and supported, united in a bond of love. Some may say these qualities are outdated; but remember they’re contained in the bible and therefore pertain to all ages and times.
Today’s feast reminds parents to examine themselves to see how well they’re fulfilling their solemn responsibility which God has placed on them. It’s important to reflect on how one’s family fulfils God’s plan because the family one grows up in influences them for the rest of their lives.
Children are the fruit of their marital love. Children are a gift entrusted to parents who are accountable before God for the love and care they give to them. Parents must understand they’re rearing God’s children entrusted to them and God wants his children back to live with him forever in heaven.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2223) gives the following advice to parents: “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.’” The CCC adds: “Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children.”
This no doubt sounds quite daunting and it is. But again God never asks us to do anything he doesn’t also give us the grace to achieve it. This begins with the grace given in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. This grace doesn’t guarantee everything will be easy; rather it helps the couple to be faithful to each other and in living family life.
With this in mind every family should avail themselves to the sacramental life of the Church. Grace is an infusion of divine life into the soul and the most powerful source of grace is the sacraments especially the Eucharist. Parents must honor the 3rd commandment and attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation and bring their children with them because they all need the abundant graces available with every reception of Holy Communion.
One of the biggest barriers to grace is sin. Again y’all we sin every day so I recommend going to confession at least once a month. The grace of the sacrament of Confession is multivalent. Yes your sins are forgiven if you confess them all and are sorry for committing them but you also receive an additional grace to resist future temptations. It’s like getting a spiritual B12 shot.
Another source of grace is of course prayer. Prayer is our way of reaching out to God every day. Praying daily as a family will bond a family like almost nothing else. Let’s recall the words of Fr. Patrick Peyton a family that prays together stays together.
My family was an example of this. Growing up our family prayed a rosary together nightly. We also had a little place in our house we used as a small makeshift chapel where we could pray privately. It had a couple of small statues, a crucifix, a couple of candles among other things. It was a beautiful reminder to pray. Time spent with God always brings a blessing. This may have been an influence in my becoming a priest because I would play celebrating Mass at it and it only took me 55 years to get ordained.
Brothers and sisters the Holy Family is a model for every family. Like Joseph, fathers are to do everything necessary to provide for and protect his family especially from the evil forces in the world that can harm them. Like Mary, our mothers must embrace their role as nurturers especially teaching their children how to seek and find the presence of God in their lives.
Parents with the help of the parish must teach their children the faith and they’re also to make the faith and the love of God real for their children and they do so when they witness their parents praying, going to Mass, participating in parish functions, choosing right over wrong and selflessly reaching out to care for people in need.
Parents, you will have your children only for a brief time. Make that time special. Don’t be like the parents in my anecdote at the beginning of this homily. Spending quality time together with the family is a way of showing love for them whereas not spending time with them hurts them as it hurt the son in that story.
My dear children just as the Holy Family survived all its crises through love for each other and faith in God, we pray during this Mass that our families will conquer all difficulties through that same love for each other and faith in God. May all of our families be holy families, holy little domestic churches, a communion of relationships of love, revolving around the love of Jesus Christ.