The Feast of the Holy Family – Second Sunday of Christmas
Sirach 3:3–7, 14–17; Colossians 3:12–21; Matthew 2:13–15, 19–23
A friend gave me a reprint of Wu Yong Liang’s Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. Mary holds the infant Jesus on a donkey while Joseph walks beside them. Coptic tradition remembers this journey as long and perilous: no shelter, little food or water, and complete dependence on strangers and divine help. Legends tell of palm trees bending to offer dates, caves opening to hide the family, and springs rising in the desert.
Today many contemporary families take a similar journey—fleeing violent conflict, crushing poverty, political persecution, climate-driven disasters, criminal violence, or simply the collapse of any hope for their children’s future.
- Fighting for Life
Matthew builds his Gospel around the great comparison between Israel and Jesus. As Jacob once went to Egypt, so does Jesus. As Moses escaped Pharaoh’s decree to kill Hebrew boys, so Jesus escapes Herod’s massacre. Israel is tested in the wilderness; Jesus, too, is tested. Moses gives the Ten Commandments; Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes.
Both children were important in God’s eyes, both had a mission to fulfil and so God’s providence played an important role in their lives: Moses’ mother protected him with courage and intelligence; Joseph protected Jesus by listening deeply to God’s warnings in his dreams. Salvation history often moves forward through the daily faithfulness of mothers and fathers.
- War Against the Family
It is a subtle war, rarely declared but deeply felt. It is waged through ideological propaganda that reshapes the meaning of family, portraying it as oppressive, outdated, or an obstacle to individual freedom. It is waged through economic pressure, where stable work becomes harder to find, wages cannot sustain a household, and parents are forced to work far from home or for such long hours that family life slowly disappears. It is waged through media and digital culture, which fragment our attention, steal the time that belongs to our loved ones, and isolate members of the same household behind separate screens.
And yet, as in the stories of Moses and Jesus, God continues to work through the quiet fidelity of ordinary parents. In countless homes across the world, mothers and fathers resist these pressures with courage, creativity, sacrifice, and love. Their daily choices keep the light of Nazareth alive.
- No substitute for Family
The Gospel ends with Joseph bringing Mary and the Child back to Nazareth. There, on January 5, 1964, Paul VI spoke words that sound almost revolutionary today: “There is no substitute for the family when it comes to raising children.”
But what would a society look like if it truly believed this?
Imagine a family in which a father earns a living wage—enough to support the household—and works only eight hours a day. He has free afternoons and weekends, time that belongs not to the economy but to his wife and children. Imagine a mother who chooses to stay at home not from lack of opportunity but from genuine desire—supported by a society that recognizes the work of raising children as a contribution more valuable than many paid professions.
Imagine children growing up at home—not in institutions—from their earliest years, surrounded by affection and stability. When they begin school, they attend only half a day, returning with enough time to play in the neighborhood, to explore, to breathe, to grow at a human pace.
Imagine not one child only, but three—brothers and sisters forming each other, supported not only by their parents but also by grandparents who delight in watching them grow. A family not squeezed by exhaustion, anxiety, and screens, but held together by time, presence, and joy.
Would such a world be naïve? Or is it, in fact, the kind of human ecology the Gospel invites us to hope for—a society ordered not around profit and productivity, but around persons, relationships, and the sacred gift of life.
Conclusion
Nazareth reminds us that God’s greatest work unfolds quietly within family life. In every generation the family is tested, pressured, even wounded—yet it remains the place where love becomes flesh and where children learn hope. As we honour the Holy Family, we ask for the courage to protect our own families and the wisdom to build a society that allows them to flourish.
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).