Feast of the Holy Family: December 27/28, 2025

Pope Leo 13th, not our current Pope but the one before him, in 1892, called for a long celebrated feast of the Holy Family in some dioceses, to be observed throughout the universal Church on the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany.  He saw this feast as a possible antidote to the troubles plaguing the family in an increasing industrialized  world.

  Pope Leo worried that capitalistic employers worried about their profits,  might not keep in mind the good of the working man’s soul and have them prioritize work at the neglect of their home and their family life. A little prophetic on Pope Leo’s part, I think, as I wonder what he would make of our industrialized world today, our fast pace, our reliance on technology, our avoidance of quiet and reflection, and men and women’s priorities when it comes to work, family, and home. . .

In the reform of the liturgical calendar which followed the 2nd Vatican Council, in 1969,  this feast of the Holy Family was moved to the Sunday after Christmas. I think there was a bit of wisdom in moving the feast, as most families are still together at this time, rather than in late January. We are either still enjoying our post-Christmas time together, or have had our fill of each other by now and are ready to send everyone back from where they came!   But important, I think for families to be able to celebrate this feast together, no matter how they are feeling.

I, for one, have fond memories of this week after Christmas when I was growing up. We were out of school, and my dad was off work, and so we all slept late and we had leisurely, hearty breakfasts, and entertained ourselves with our new Christmas toys,  and we all played games of Monopoly that lasted hours and sometimes even days.  If we were lucky, we got some snow,  which allowed my parents to join us in building snowmen, going sledding, and engaging in snowball fights.

It was then, in these early years of childhood, that I learned that like Mary and Joseph in the Gospel today, my parents would do anything to protect me and my two brothers and sisters,   and to give us a good start in life. And in hindsight of those early years, I have come to appreciate the wisdom found in the movie Lilo & Stitch where it was said “family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

Or journalist Jane Howard who said: “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family,  whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one to get through life.”  And 1st Lady Barbara Bush who said: “At the end of your life, you will never regret not having past one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.”

In celebrating the feast of the Holy Family, the Church continues to teach that the first place God uses us to build God’s kingdom is at home, with our family,  in what the Church calls the domestic Church.  The Vatican II document:  The Church in the Modern World,  says,  “the love present in marriage and family life is really a divine love. Families thus share an interdependence, providing support in hard times and sharing every day life.  And by their love, support, and cooperation,  families make the Kingdom of God real and present.”

Our current Pope Leo, Leo 14th, echoes such teaching by saying: “Families become privileged places in which to encounter Jesus, who loves us and desires our good always. A family is usually the first place where we receive the love and support we need to move forward as we are called to holiness and overcome the trials we all face in life.”  Now I realize not everyone had the same experience I had growing up,  or experiences what the Church holds up as an ideal. Today families are having fewer children and in fact, we are even seeing a decline in families in general, less marriages, more cohabitation, less children. And I don’t want anyone to think that single-parents are not courageous and trying their hardest to provide for a healthy, loving, holy upbringing for their children. With this feast, the Church is simply acknowledging God’s design for the family as being very important for the emotional and psychological and spiritual health of children.  As Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire profoundly says at the end of that movie: “There are all sorts of different families.  Some families have one mommy, some families have one daddy, or two families.  And some children live with their uncle or aunt.  Some live with grandparents, and some children live with foster parents.  And some live in separate neighborhoods, in different areas of the country,  and they may not see each other for days, or weeks, or months. . . even years at a time. But if there is love,  those are the ties that bind, and you will have a family in your heart, forever.”

Yes, as philosopher Friederich Nietzsche said:  “In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds us closer together, and the music that brings harmony into our lives.

May we all have the comfort of a family,  one chosen for us by God,  or one of our own choosing. And may we all find a home,  where as poet Robert Frost said:  is the place where, when you have to go there,  they have to take you in.”