We have just celebrated the birth of Jesus. The mystery of the Incarnation is that Jesus was not God play acting at being human. Jesus really was human. He got bumps and bruises, roughhousing with friends. The family we call the Holy Family was not all that much different from other families.
The word “holiness” comes from the word ‘healthy,’ and health may be the means for us to understand holiness and, therefore, what we celebrate on this Feast of the Holy Family.
Holiness is a kind of confidence, a conviction that God’s love embraces me. God’s love is stronger than sin, stronger than death, and so I can live with confidence. I need not fear loving others or be loved by them. I need not fear the world and what it may do to those who serve. I need not fear the power of sin or death.
Holiness is a result, not an objective. When I am filled with amazement at God’s great love, when I share that love with all I meet, I become holy. I pray with gusto.
The Holy Family was holy not because it lived an exalted life unavailable to the rest of us. It was holy because it was a group of people not unlike us who loved, who lived, who wept, who laughed. Theirs was a home in which boy could ‘grow in size and strength, filled with wisdom (with) the grace of God on him.’
Our homes can be the same. Perhaps more than we realize, they are. They have their problems. No family is without them. Every mother feels a sword piercing her heart at some time. Yet our homes are where we learn to love, where we learn of God’s love. It is in our families that we practice the sharing, openness, and patience that enable us to show the glorious love of God to our world.
God bless! Have a wonderful week! A blessed New Year!