The Sunday after Christmas is the feast day of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The readings of this liturgy which are Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 128; Colossians 3:12-21; and Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 do emphasize the importance of the family as far as the future and safety of humanity is concerned.

It is within the family that essential values that animate men such as love, respect and obedience are learned. The importance of human family cannot be exaggerated because it is at the very roots of  the survival of humanity itself.  

Today, as we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family, we meditate on the fact that God chose to become man and grow up in a human family.

That event added value and dignity to human family as an institution. And this has given a great responsibility to man, to safeguard that dignity at all cost.

In addition to family dignity, that divine action reflected as well the holiness of married life. That state of life should be looked up as a treasure for man kind.

By the same event, family life was proved as the domestic church and a kind of school of human enrichment.
Unfortunately, the recent history of family life has shaded the above bright picture differently.

It is not a secret today, that most of the social and critical problems in our world today are a result of weak and unhealthy family life which has become our daily experience.

At times people seem to give an impression that they are tired of living together, though no man is an island; at least none was created as one!

That is why, our celebration of the feast of the Holy Family should be an occasion of reassessing our family life. 

Matthew 2:13ff tells us that family problems are as old as the history of that very institution.  The first experience that Jesus had as soon as he had become man, was his family to leave for Egypt seeking for asylum!

This happened in the first century, and is still one of the major problems of man today.  No sooner had the visitors laid their gifts on the infant’s feet than Joseph received the command from God’s messenger: "Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt.”

Perhaps you have ever been a refugee yourself? Then you know the implication of such a command on the life of the whole family.  

The Holy Family survived such a nasty experience like so many families have done. It is true that strong and healthy families have shown a great capacity to overcome so many evils of our time.

This image of the flight of the holy Family suggests today that the constant concern over family values must be joined to a struggle for the dignity and the rights of every family.

Christian married couples are called to help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in the rearing of their children.

They should keep in mind that from their marriage, some thing great comes forth: a family which is in a sense a school for human formation; a family which can fulfill or fail its objectives.

In order to achieve the full flowering of its life and mission, the married couple must be convinced of the usefulness of their contribution to the survival of humankind.

When Ben Sirach in Ecclesiasticus 3:2ff talks of family life he stresses what we read in 1Cor 7:7ff, about the holiness of life in marriage. By virtue of the sacrament of matrimony, the married couple signifies and shares the mystery of the unity and faithful love between Christ and the Church.

Their family may be regarded as the domestic church, the parents, by word and example, are the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children.

Parents should remember their capacity to impart on their children good or bad manner by way of their examples both in words and deeds

It is possible that every family may have its own story to tell. But in all sorts of tribulations, each family should remember that as Moses led his people out of slavery from Egypt into the Promised Land, so Jesus, coming into our slavery through his incarnation, leads us out of our sinful, captive state into true and full liberty in the loving arms of God.

But God needs our cooperation in order to save us! Fortunately the history of human family has registered so many instances of its capacity of self preservation by raising up its own Moses capable of leading his people out of different problems.

But for this to happen, human family must insist on its own dignity. 

Ends