The Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Year A – Homily (2025)

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Year A 
Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14 
Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 (1) 
Colossians 3:12-21 
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 
December 28, 2025 

Family life is important.  Family life is to be rooted in love.  Of course, family life should involve love between family members.  For this to work, it needs something more.  It needs to be rooted in God’s love for God is love (1 John 4:16). 

Family life is a social reality.  Society is better when families are stronger.  It is also a theological reality.  Our readings today reveal to us what God intends family life to be like.  Good family life helps us be better people.   

Unfortunately, family life is not always what God intends.  Broken families are a reality in society today.  That does not change what God intends and it shouldn’t change our efforts for our families to be what God intends.  The fact that there is more divorce and couples living together without being married does not make it okay. 

Probably one of the most unpopular Bible verses about marriage is found in Paul’s Letter to the Colossians.  People incorrectly see just one verse from today’s second reading, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands.”  Many reject this entire passage because they take this one phrase out of context.  Unfortunately, there are some husbands who think their wives should follow this passage without understanding the context of the entire passage.   

God intends marriage to be a mutual and complimentary relationship.  Right after Paul writes, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands” he writes, “Husbands, love your wives.”  Husbands should not expect their wives to be subordinate like slaves.  If husbands truly love their wives, they will only ask for what is good for both of them (and their children).  Spouses should desire to lead each other to Heaven. 

God intends family to be a husband, wife, and children.  Sirach tells us “God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.”  This is in keeping with the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12).  When children honor their parents, good comes of it.  This is true not just for young children but for all.   

The commandment says honor.  When we are little, this focuses on obedience.  When our parents grow old, it calls us to take care of our parents.  As we read in Sirach, “Even if his mind fail, be considerate of him.”  In centuries past, this might mean taking your elderly parents into your home.  Today, it might mean them living in their own home but adult children assisting them in some tasks, hiring aides, or it might mean the elderly parents living in a nursing home if that is what is best for them.  It never means dropping them off at a nursing home and forgetting about them.  It pains my heart when I see nursing home residents who are not visited by their families.   

Returning to principle of young children obeying your parents, Paul reminds the parents, “Fathers, do not provoke your children.”  Just as a wife is not a slave to her husband, children are not meant to be slaves to their parents.  Children need to obey their parents and do their chores as God intends but they are not slaves. 

God wants families to be together in one household with a father, mother, and children.  This is why God called Joseph to serve as Jesus’ adopted father.  God wanted Jesus to be raised in a good, faithful, and loving family with a mother and a father.  Calling Joseph to lead the Holy Family to safety, God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream with instructions to flee to Egypt.   

As Paul writes, God calls us to “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another.”  If we are to be a joyful and happy society, we need to have these virtues.  Family life is the place where we should first learn these virtues.  

When we learn these virtues, we open ourselves more fully to the “peace of Christ.”  When we let Christ dwell in our hearts, we can properly “teach and admonish one another” as we come together in faith, “singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” to praise God “with gratitude” in our hearts.   

Peace, 

Fr. Jeff