{"id":3073,"date":"2019-12-29T12:25:43","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T17:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=3073"},"modified":"2019-12-29T15:15:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T20:15:15","slug":"the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph<\/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 29, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We continue\nour celebration of Christmas for Jesus\u2019 birth is too important to celebrate\nwith just a single day.  So, we make it a\nwhole season that will continue until we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord on\nJanuary 12th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christmas is\na time when families come together.  With\nthis in mind, today we celebrate Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as the Holy Family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be\neasy to imagine that Jesus was the perfect child and the Holy Family had an\neasy life but it wasn\u2019t all that easy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus being\nborn in a stable would hardly be considered an easy beginning.  The challenges didn\u2019t end there.  Joseph has another dream where the angel of\nthe Lord tells him to \u201ctake the child and\nhis mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph and\nMary were probably hoping to return home and get back to their normal lives but\nit was not to be.  They had to go to Egypt\njust as Jacob and his sons did in a time of famine before the Exodus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are not\ntold what their time in Egypt was like but I\u2019m sure it had it challenges.  What did Joseph do for work?  Where did they live?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, at the\nappointed time for the prophecy, \u201cOut of\nEgypt I called my son<\/em>,\u201d to be fulfilled, the Lord again sent an angel to\nJoseph in a dream to tell him to return with Jesus and Mary to Israel.  They left Egypt towards the promised\nland.  What the Israelites had done in\nthe Exodus, Jesus does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were\nprobably ecstatic at the opportunity to finally return home but the challenges\nwere not over.  When Joseph \u201cheard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea\nin place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back there.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much for\ntheir hope to return home but the Lord did not desert Jesus, Mary, and\nJoseph.  Once again, another prophecy is\nfulfilled when God sends them to Nazareth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all these\nchallenges, what Jesus, Mary, and Joseph did, they did as a family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family is\nsomething that God sets in the divine order of things.  \u201cGod\nsets a father in honor over his children, a mother\u2019s authority he confirms over\nher sons.<\/em>\u201d  God calls children to\nhonor their parents.  We obey our parents\nwhen we are young and take care of them when they are old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul says\nwives as to be subordinate to their husbands but the line does not stop\nthere.  It continues, \u201cHusbands, love your wives<\/em>.\u201d  There must be a two-way relationship in\nmarriage.  Likewise, Paul writes, \u201cChildren, obey your parents in everything<\/em>\u201d\nbut this is balanced by \u201cFathers, do not\nprovoke your children<\/em>\u201d in which I include fathers are not to take advantage\nof their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family is\nmeant to be a place where we learn good virtues, teaching and admonishing one\nanother.  Family is called the \u201cdomestic\nchurch\u201d because family is to be a place where we first learn how God calls us\nto live with \u201ccompassion, kindness,\nhumility, gentleness, and patience.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family is\nsomething special.  Families are meant to\nbe a source of strength but families can also be a challenge because of hurt\nand broken relationships.  Hence, Paul\u2019s\nwords, \u201cbearing with one another and\nforgiving one another.<\/em>\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family can be\na place where, when we are hurt, we learn to forgive.  When we are hurt by others, it might seem\nsimplest to walk away, never to see them again. \nWith family, it isn\u2019t so easy to walk away and we need to learn to\nforgive and let go of the hurt.  Of\ncourse, the reality is we don\u2019t always reconcile even with family members.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our opening prayer speaks of the \u201cshining example of the Holy Family\u201d and calls us to \u201cimitate them.\u201d  Here I want to speak of how they were a family.  I mentioned before that one of the challenges that they would have faced in Egypt was Joseph needing to find a job to provide for the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was\ncertainly important but we are not told the details.  Providing for their family is something\nparents are to do but just as, even more important is being there <\/em><\/strong>for their\nfamily.  The two most important things\nfamilies can do is to lead each other to God and to be there <\/em><\/strong>for each\nother.  This is what it means to\nlove.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be an example\nto one another in your family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is the\nexample of faith in your family?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are you\nan example of faith?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you\ndo to follow the \u201cshining example of the Holy Family\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and JosephSirach 3:2-6, 12-14Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 (1)Colossians 3:12-21Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23December 29, 2019 We continue our celebration of Christmas for Jesus\u2019 birth is too important to celebrate with just a single day.  So, we make it a whole season that will continue until we celebrate the Baptism of the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[62,672,82],"tags":[154,540,671],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-Nz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3076,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073\/revisions\/3076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}