FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

Cherish Our Families

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family!  Wouldn’t you have loved to have walked along with the Holy Family on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem?  I can imagine the singing, the conversations with friends and relatives, the games around the campfires at night. Jesus was probably walking and running around with his cousins, enjoying the sense of love and camaraderie.  If any of you have spent a wonderful weekend camping, or on a trip with your family, you’ve had a taste of this type of fun adventure. 

As Joseph, Mary and Jesus reached the Holy City, I’m sure they were all tired; it was a multiple day walk from Nazareth.  As soon as they entered the gates, they were surrounded by thousands of believers, there to make sacrifices and worship at the temple. No doubt, as parents do, Mary and Joseph were making sure they knew where Jesus was in the crowded city.  But, after the festivities and while walking the journey home, somehow Jesus was missing!  Does your heart stop when you read this?  Once when my young son was hiding from me in a department store, I thought the fear and panic would be the end of me.  It’s a parent’s nightmare!

Of course, Mary and Joseph return and they frantically search the city for three days. Three Days!   When he is found, Mary asks, “Son, why have you done this to us?  Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety” (Lk 2:48). Evidently, the Holy Family was not above fear-filled panic.  But the twelve-year-old Jesus doesn’t appear to understand why they didn’t look for him in the temple first.  This is puzzling. Was he being disrespectful? (I can picture a twelve-year-old saying something like this, and maybe you can, too.  Like, “Gee, mom, why didn’t you look here first?”.)  At this point, though, Jesus acknowledges God as his Father and their close personal relationship.  And that it was natural to want to stay in His house, as it was His house as well.  

What does this passage, which is only recounted in Luke, tell us about the Holy Family? They were a family who knew the importance of God, thus the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They loved each other, shown by Mary and Joseph’s anxiety in trying to find Jesus, and in Jesus being obedient to them, returning to Nazareth.  They were hopeful in what the future held, as Mary kept all these things in her heart and reflected on them.

We are all children of God, the Father, who desires to be the center and strength of our lives. As we begin 2025, let’s make a resolution to do everything we can to support the precious gift of family.

–Margo Wright

Send Us Forth are reflections written by St. Matthew parishioners and friends.