The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
This feast is such an important feast for us today because the Holy Family is the iconic image of every family. So let us spend some quiet time contemplating the Holy Family as a unit, then each member separately: Joseph, Mary and Jesus.
The family is where each believes the best of the other, loves the other in spite of disappointments, hardships, reversals of fortune. It is where each one accepts things without fully understanding them. St. Joseph, you were no stranger to such challenges, pray for our families.
Mothers and fathers love their children because God has given these to them. He has entrusted to them in Christ their salvation. This is their vocation. Mary, you who discovered and embraced this vocation when you said, ”Thy will be done.” Pray now for our families.
Our salvation was worked out during the thirty years after the Word was made Flesh. Lord Jesus, teach our children that they cannot know your heavenly Father’s will for them if they fail to listen to what you taught them during the first thirty years of your life, when you learned, within your family, to grow in wisdom and grace. Lord, bless our children; bless their parents.