The Most important in the world is Family and Love

1 Sam. 1:20-22.24-28, 1 Jn 3:1-2.21-24, Lk. 2:41-52. On this First Sunday of Christmas, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the family of Nazareth. We fix our gaze on Jesus, Mary and Joseph as the model for every 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. We need to learn lessons from the Holy Family: By celebrating the Sunday following Christmas as the Feast of the Holy Family, the Church encourages us to look up to the Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for inspiration, example and encouragement. Jesus brought holiness to the family of Joseph and Mary as Jesus brings us holiness by embracing us in His family. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2223) gives the following advice to the 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.

Today, we are called to live as children of God, “chosen ones, holy and beloved,” as today's reading puts it. Happy homes are the fruit of our faithfulness to the Lord, we sing in today’s Psalm. However, the Liturgy invites us to see more, to see how, through our family obligations and relationships, our families shall become heralds of the family of God that He wants to create on earth. Jesus shows us this in today’s Gospel. His obedience to His earthly parents flows directly from His obedience to the will of His Heavenly Father. The emphasis is all on their familiar ties to Jesus. These ties are emphasised only so that Jesus can point to us beyond that earthly relationship to the Fatherhood of God. In what Jesus calls “My Father’s house,” every family finds its true meaning and purpose. He returned with them to Nazareth and put Himself under their tutelage and guidance. He is indeed the Lord God, King of kings, the Master of all the whole Universe, Lord of all creation. Yet, by His incarnation, through the mystery of His indwelling in the flesh, He had also become the Son of Man, born as a Child in Bethlehem, the city of David in Judea just as we have just celebrated it in Christmas yesterday. He placed Himself under the authority and power of His parents as part of the Holy Family to show us that as the Son of Man, He was just like us, who also have to obey our own parents and seniors, listen to them and hear their advice for us on how we ought to live our lives.

May the Lord make our families like the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, so that we will become holy families of communion, strength, beauty and fruitfulness in the world! Amen!! Good morning and happy Sunday!!!