Reflection/Homily: Feast of the Holy Family/Sunday in the
Octave of Christmas (December 30 2012)
Theme: The Glories of the Holy Family
Theme: The Glories of the Holy Family
Today, the
Holy Mother Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Family. It is not the
celebration of saints in human garments but the triumph of grace and virtue. The
members of the Holy family experienced several challenges like we are
experiencing today but they did not allow these challenges to distract the
peace, love and unity that existed among them. The gospel reading (Luke 2:41-52)
presents us with one of such challenges – the difficulty of finding Jesus when
he was missing for three days. Others include the misunderstanding between Mary
and Joseph when Mary conceived without Joseph’s collaboration, the difficulty
of finding a place at Bethlehem, etc.
This feast
is relevant to our present society when most families are on the verge of
disintegration. It offers us an opportunity to reflect on the virtues of Jesus,
Mary and Joseph and see how we can apply them in our lives to make our
individual families holy after their examples. To do this better, we shall
briefly examine their individual lives and find out what lessons we can learn
from them.
