An Angel of the Lord Appeared to Joseph in a Dream
Introduction: May you continue to grow in appreciation and love for each member
of your family, whether you live with them or not.
Family life is an essential aspect of any society. If family
life is devalued, then a community will soon fail to function properly. Family is
more than a blood connection with relatives. It is not just a natural, physical
process by which we are united with others. It takes a lot of work by each member
of a family for them to truly be a family. Mutual support, care, and love are hallmarks
of a family. GOD gives us examples of what it means to be a family. We must look
at these role models and try to incorporate the most important elements into our
relationship with those with whom we are bound.
Today we focus on the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
and through that focusing, we reflect on the qualities that should mark all families.
The reading from Sirach is an exposé on Fourth Commandment: “Honor your father and
your mother.” Psalm 128 praises family life and shows the blessings in store for
those who care for their families while trusting GOD. The reading from St. Paul’s
letter to the Colossians presents attributes that should mark the members of a family
and their relationship to one another. The Gospel relates the events of the Holy
Family being told by an angelic dream to leave Bethlehem and flee to Egypt to avoid
Jesus being killed by the soldiers of King Herod.
First Reading: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14: ‘He who fears the Lord
honours his parents.’
Commentary: The Book
of Ecclesiasticus is a collection of wise instructions on how to behave in accordance
with the Law. The author must have been an expert in the Law, living in Jerusalem.
He sees the Law, not as a tiresome set of rules to be obeyed, but as God’s loving
gift to his People, to show them how they should act to keep close to God. It is
therefore to be treasured, a guide of inestimable value. The reading for today is
a meditation and expansion on the commandment, ‘Honour your father and your mother’,
explaining just how this should be put into practice. What was Jesus like as a baby?
Did he cry? He must have done, to make his baby feelings known. Did he bawl and
howl? Did he cry when he scraped the skin off his knees? Did he fall out of trees
and break his arm? Did he make mistakes? Did he play pranks? He must have made jokes.
He must have been a wonderful joy to his parents, loving, delightful company, full
of the devastatingly simple wisdom of children. And they must have been loving,
wonderful company for him, too, an anchor of affection and security.
Responsorial Psalm 128:1-2. 3. 4-5: Blessed are all who fear
the LORD, and walk in his ways.
The psalm links worship with memory, insisting that true praise
arises from proclaiming God’s mighty works and rejoicing in His holy name, especially
among those who belong to the “offspring of Abraham,” the chosen people.
By urging the faithful to “seek the Lord and His strength” continually,
the text emphasizes that covenantal relationship with God is sustained through ongoing
trust, dependence, and fidelity rather than a one-time act.
The closing verses ground Israel’s identity in God’s unbreakable
covenant—His remembered promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—affirming that divine
faithfulness, not human merit, is the enduring foundation of salvation history.
Second Reading: Colossians 3:12-21: Family life in the Lord.
Commentary: In an incredibly
short space the Letter to the Colossians gives a whole series of instructions on
living in community: compassion, forgiveness, love and peace – not to mention gratitude.
Love is a sort of overcoat, holding all the other qualities together. If we reflect
on these and put them into practice there can be no rivalry or hostility in the
Christian community – even within a family, where the strains of Christmas often
make love grow thin. However, a loving family is the model for the different relationships
of a loving Christian community. God’s fatherhood and motherhood is the model for
human parentage, and Christ’s devotion to his body the Church is the model for the
devotion of spouses to one another. The reading begins with an inspiring reminder
that we form the chosen people of God; God’s choice leaves us little alternative
to the attempt to behave as God’s people. The paragraph ends with the counsel to
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus; Christians are those over whom the
name of the Lord Jesus has been called, making us members of his company and putting
us under his power. This is the challenge really to act as God’s people.
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23: ‘Take the child and his mother,
and flee to Egypt.’
Commentary: The flight
into Egypt is a splendid gospel for the feast of the Holy Family and is also used
on certain other feasts of Our Lady. It tells of a time of the acutest danger, when
Mary and Joseph must have been at their wits’ ends to care for their precious child,
and so most bound together as an endangered family, and at their most reliant on
God in a situation humanly hopeless. The powerful, resourceful and pitiless Herod
was a formidable threat; he would have no scruples about killing a few male children
in the little hill-town of Bethlehem. There is also a further dimension: on many
occasions and especially here, Matthew depicts Jesus as a Second Moses: from the
beginning Herod threatens Jesus’ life just as Pharaoh had threatened Moses’ survival
as a baby. Just as Moses went into exile after killing the Egyptian overseer, so
Jesus also goes into exile, to return when the threat is past. Of both it is said,
‘Those who wanted to kill you/the child are dead’ (Exodus 4.19). Later Jesus will
be seen as the Second Moses when he stays forty days and nights fasting in the desert,
and when he gives the Law at the Sermon on the Mount and at the Transfiguration.
Reflection: Like all
godly Jewish parents, Joseph and Mary raised the child Jesus in the reverence and
wisdom of the Lord. Joseph was given a unique task as the guardian and protector
of Mary and of Jesus. What can we learn from the example and witness of Joseph?
Joseph is a man of God, a man of unquestioning obedience and willing service. He
is a man of prayer and a man of God's word. Through faith he recognized the hand
of God in the mystery of the Incarnation - the Son of God taking on flesh as the
son of the virgin Mary.
Joseph is a man of action, diligent in the care of his family
and ready to do the Lord's bidding. Joseph fearlessly set aside his own plans when
God called him to "take to the road" and to leave his familiar surroundings
- his home, friends and relatives, and the security of his livelihood in order to
pursue a hidden mission God entrusted to him as the guardian of the newborn King.
God has a plan for each one of us. With the plan God gives grace
and the assurance of his guiding hand and care. Do you trust your heavenly Father
for his plan for your life? Are you willing to sacrifice your own plans for the
sake of God's plan? Are you willing to give God unquestioning service and to pursue
whatever mission he gives you?
Lord Jesus, make me a faithful servant of your word and guardian
of your truth. Help me to obey you willingly, like Joseph and Mary, with unquestioning
trust and with joyful hope.
Daily Quote from the Early Church
Fathers: The holy family flees to
Egypt, by John Chrysostom, 547-407 A.D.
"But why was the Christ child sent into Egypt? The text
makes this clear: he was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out
of Egypt have I called my son' (Hosea 11:1). From that point onward we see that
the hope of salvation would be proclaimed to the whole world. Babylon and Egypt
represent the whole world. Even when they were engulfed in ungodliness, God signified
that he intended to correct and amend both Babylon and Egypt. God wanted humanity
to expect his bounteous gifts the world over. So he called from Babylon the wise
men and sent to Egypt the holy family.
"Besides what I have said, there is another lesson also
to be learned, which tends powerfully toward true self-constraint in us. We are
warned from the beginning to look out for temptations and plots. And we see this
even when he came in swaddling clothes. Thus you see even at his birth a tyrant
raging, a flight ensuing and a departure beyond the border. For it was because of
no crime that his family was exiled into the land of Egypt.
"Similarly, you yourself need not be troubled if you are
suffering countless dangers. Do not expect to be celebrated or crowned promptly
for your troubles. Instead you may keep in mind the long-suffering example of the
mother of the Child, bearing all things nobly, knowing that such a fugitive life
is consistent with the ordering of spiritual things. You are sharing the kind of
labor Mary herself shared. So did the magi. They both were willing to retire secretly
in the humiliating role of fugitive." (excerpt from THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW,
HOMILY 8.2)
who cares? “Take care
of your father when he is old; grieve him not as long as he lives. Even if his mind
fail, be considerate with him; revile him not in the fullness of your strength.
For kindness to a father will not be forgotten, it will serve as a sin offering
— it will take lasting root.” —Sirach 3:12-14
More children than ever before are being cared for by people
other than their parents. More elderly people are being cared for by people other
than their children than at any other time in history. These trends are not all
bad. Some of this care for children and the elderly is Christ-centered. It is an
expression of compassion for those in difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, the
Lord’s plan in general is for parents to be the primary care-givers for their children
and children for their parents.
This care is humanly impossible to give. This can motivate us
to cry out to God and receive His gift of unconditional love. This will then make
our families “holy families.” For our families to begin to become holy, it is necessary
“to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children
to their fathers” (Mal 3:24). Then they will care and pray for one another and by
God’s grace be holy.
As Herod tried to destroy the Holy Family (see Mt 2:13), so new
Herods are trying to destroy your family and its holiness. Protect your family by
sacrificially and unconditionally loving your parents and children. Be holy.
Prayer: Father, may our families be holy as You are holy (see
1 Pt 1:16). “You who are wives, be submissive to your husbands. This is your duty
in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives. Avoid any bitterness toward them.” —Col
3:18-19. Praise Jesus, Who taught us how to live and love in a human family (see
Lk 2:51).
The personal question for
today: How can the life of the
Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, strengthen me in my relationships with
members of my family? Do I see that being “holy” and “blessed” does not
necessarily mean that I don’t have problems and challenges in my living out my relationships
within my family or community? What is my reaction when I think of my family
and its interrelations as being called to reflect the relationships within the
Godhead? What positive action will I do today and in the days ahead to bolster
the relationships within my family/community?
*The Holy Innocents:
Herod “the Great,” king of Judea, was unpopular with his people because of his
connections with the Romans and his religious indifference. Hence he was
insecure and fearful of any threat to his throne. He was a master politician
and a tyrant capable of extreme brutality. He killed his wife, his brother, and
his sister’s two husbands, to name only a few.
Matthew 2:1-18 tells this story: Herod was “greatly
troubled” when astrologers from the east came asking the whereabouts of “the
newborn king of the Jews,” whose star they had seen. They were told that the
Jewish Scriptures named Bethlehem as the place where the Messiah would be born.
Herod cunningly told them to report back to him so that he could also “do him
homage.” They found Jesus, offered him their gifts, and warned by an angel,
avoided Herod on their way home. Jesus escaped to Egypt.
Herod became furious and “ordered the massacre of all the
boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under.” The horror of the
massacre and the devastation of the mothers and fathers led Matthew to quote
Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel
weeping for her children…” (Matthew 2:18). Rachel was the wife of Jacob
(Israel). She is pictured as weeping at the place where the Israelites were
herded together by the conquering Assyrians for their march into captivity.
The Holy Innocents are few in comparison to the genocide and
abortion of our day. But even if there had been only one, we recognize the
greatest treasure God put on the earth—a human person, destined for eternity,
and graced by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
