Holy Family Sunday

December 28, 2026

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

At Christmas time we often see peaceful, quiet scenes of the Holy Family on our Christmas cards, Nativity scenes in our homes, or in front of our churches. This but only one aspect of the reality of the Holy Family. It is a valid aspect that emphasizes the enormity of what is taking place at the birth of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior: the uniting of God with the human race which he so loved. The strains of Silent Night, Holy Night are so fitting for this extraordinary event.

But it tends to emphasize the Divine reality of the person of Jesus. Rightly so, because we can never forget this important part of who Jesus Christ is, for without it nothing wonderful about this birth would be perceived. It would simply be the birth of a poor child brought into the world at an inconvenient time. 

However, there is another part of this birth that is equally essential for what God has planned to be accomplished: that Jesus Christ is also human. Without this, equally nothing about this birth would be so earth shattering. And so, the necessity of the Holy Family becomes clear. Jesus does not become a human being in a vacuum,, but in a family. They help him mature as a man, so that he will be able to perceive what his Father in heaven asks of him. In the Christmas carol, What Child is This, we sing this line: “Nails, spear shall pierce him through, the cross be born for me, for you...the Babe, the son of Mary.” Jesus is not only to become one with us as a human being, but as a God-Man who will die for us to redeem us, and make us one with him, his Father, and his Holy Spirit.

The life of this Holy Family is the situation in which all this is accomplished. In it we have the uniting of the Son of God with two extraordinary people who love, nurture, and care for Jesus in our very human world. Mary is a mother so close to God, that she trustingly agrees to a plan she cannot even begin to understand. And Joseph, a righteous man, who lives trying to accomplish the Father’s plan which is only revealed to him a little at a time. Joseph learns in a dream that he must take Mary into his home as his wife and care for a son who is only his foster son. Then he learns that he must flee with Mary and Jesus to protect him from certain death, only learning some years later the he is free to return home to raise Jesus to manhood. What a family this is who trust in the Lord and his love.

Mary and Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, are people of unwavering obedience, eager to consult God in fervent prayer and to learn His will through “dreams” or the appearance of an angel. They obey without complaint, and are prompt an obedience that is crucial to God’s plan. They know nothing except the next step of the journey, but they take that step. 

So also is our obedience crucial to God’s plan. We cannot see the fullness of God’s plan for our lives or our families any better than Joseph and Mary could see it for their live, but we can be assured that our faithfulness will also lead, one step at a time, to great things. They may not seem to be great things in the eyes of the world, they are great things in the lives of people that God intends for us to touch. We must listen to our dreams and the insights God gives us in our prayer and the example he lets us see in others.

Fr. John Tran