Reflection: Feast of the Holy Family

Sir 3:2-6, 12-14; Col 3:12-21; Mt 2:13-15; 19-23; Lk 2:22-40; & 41-52.

Mother Church honors the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph on the Sunday between Dec 25 and Jan 1, or on Dec 30. Mother Church wants us to look at the Holy Family and imitate their love for God and care for each other, and their total obedience to God in all aspects of their life without asking many questions. They did not know what tomorrow held; Mary most of all did not know what pain her Motherhood would bring, but with total submission she accepted God’s invitation, trusting that God knows what he was doing and that he would provide the strength to fulfill what he commanded. In our family, is there this kind of obedience and trust in God’s loving care for us. Is God an active party in our family life? Do we allow him space in our midst?

We all know that Satan wants to put himself on the throne of Yahweh and make himself to be worshipped by all creatures. He wants to be God himself. It is clear, however, that Satan is not God but only a creature of God; he cannot create because he is no creator. So what does he do? He destroys the good creation of God; he is no builder, but a destroyer. From the beginning God wanted man and woman to share in his gifts; he wanted man and woman to live with him in Paradise, but Satan deceived man and woman, so they were driven out of Paradise. When God sent his Son Jesus to save us, Satan induced the Jewish leaders to put him to death thinking that he would win by his death. But Jesus rose from the dead and Satan was put to shame. Still Satan went on killing the followers of Jesus starting with St. Stephen. Many martyrs followed and their blood irrigated the soil of the Roman Empire, instead of being defeated Christianity flourished. Until now many saints follow Jesus, even to becoming victim souls and stigmatists, bearing the wounds of Jesus in their bodies.

Satan changed tactics and we need discernment to recognize his strategy. Satan now uses our desire for comfort and pleasure to lead us to sin and sinful lives. Sexual pleasure is the foremost armor used by Satan; adultery and betrayal of marriage vows is considered normal even by Catholics, so are premarital and extramarital sex, divorce and abortion. Since sexual pleasure can be had without the responsibility of children, marriage and family lose attraction. Then marriage is no longer the union of man and woman to form a family, but same-sex union. What is the chaos and confusion in the minds of the young today? The human mind and heart long for love and security in love, but the family is no longer there to give it. There is no more agent to pass on the culture of family life because of same-sex unions, adoptive parents who themselves went through divorce and broken unions. Psychiatric cases increase by the hundreds, but no one seems to realize that it all started when man and woman sought personal pleasures and satisfactions with no care for responsibility, including the use of drugs.

Let us go back to Genesis. God created man and woman and commanded that man shall leave father and mother and cling to his wife and the two shall become one, not only in body for procreation but also of mind and heart for love and security of offspring. Christian culture can be passed on only when parents show the example to their children. When God the Savior came, he entered our world through a family to show us that it is in family life that we fulfill the will of God, not in same-sex union nor in broken marriages. In Christian marriage where man and woman are united in love of God and of one another, children find love and security, and are educated in Christian living. The Holy Family in Nazareth is presented to us for emulation and also for protection and guidance. Destruction of family life is Satan’s instrument to destroy the Church. Know that the New World Order proposed by international forces is anti-family. Let us uphold God’s original plan: family life; this is where children grow in the atmosphere of love, and knowledge, love and service of God are developed and passed on to the next generation. Even when children are brought up by Lolo and Lola, or by Tito and Tita, many keep a grudge “kung bakit ako iniwan nila at ipinamigay sa iba?” There is no substitute to Mama and Papa caring for the children. A truly Catholic Christian family is the original plan of God. Let us imitate the Holy Family.