Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. Jesus lived as a son, as part of a human family, perhaps we can say He belonged to a family which points the way for the rest of us. The Holy Family shows us, and encourages us to see, the family as the sanctuary of life. There can be no life without family; and there can be no family without life. The family, above all, is the place where life is to be welcomed, no matter how fragile or inconvenient it may be. In practicing the daily virtues of charity, mutual obedience, and love, families strive to sanctify and to build up their life together. We live in a culture that has over complicated life, particularly that of family life. Perhaps the best way of dealing with this is to rediscover the essential family quality of simply being there with, and for, one another both in season and out of season. Today’s feast invites us all to reflect on the relationships that exist within our family and to learn – and indeed relearn – that those relationships only grow from giving oneself away to the other in selfless love, and love’s reward enables us to say a generous “yes” to the gift of life.
…Reposing, infant-like, as though, on Joseph’s arms, on Mary’s knee!
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