Homily for the Mass of the Holy Family

Sunday 28 December 2025
The Holy Family – Year A

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

1^st reading: Sirach 3, 2-6.12-14
Psalm 127 (128), 1-2, 3, 4-5
2^rd Reading: Colossians 3:12-21
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

It is therefore first far from the promised land, far from Jerusalem, that Jesus will grow up and that in his humanity he will learn about the life of the children of Israel. 

It is in Egypt, where there are Jewish settlements, but it is in Egypt, far from the promised land, where his ancestors had been held in slavery by Pharaoh, that Jesus will grow up. 

It is in the home where he was born, the home of Mary and Joseph, that Jesus in his humanity learns to pray, learns Holy History, learns the Psalms. 

He is an emigrant among other emigrants, and it is within the family structure that Jesus, as a man, receives the revelation that has been running since Abraham. 

The family is truly the basic unit of society that God intended. The Book of Genesis, in the second and most ancient account of Creation, describes the creation of humankind, male and female, for the purpose of communion, for the purpose of the covenant between man and woman. " That is why"The book says." A man will leave his father and his mother will be united to his wife, and they will become two worms of one flesh. "(Gen 2:24), this one flesh referring both to the communion of spouses and also to the child who may be born of their union. It is within a family unit that God became man."

Within this family unit, one learns about love. In a speech in October, Pope Leo XIV reminded us of this, and I quote:

In a society that often glorifies productivity and speed at the expense of relationships, it becomes urgent to give back time and space to the love that we learn in the family, where the first experiences of trust, giving and forgiveness intertwine, which constitute the fabric of social life. (Leo XIV – Address of Pope Leo XIV to the professors and students of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for the Sciences of Marriage and Family — Friday, October 24, 2025)This is what we heard in the second reading, where Paul, in chapter three of the Letter to the Colossians, after reminding us at the beginning of the chapter that we already live by the resurrection through baptism, then describes the entire spiritual battle. And there, we heard the part where he reminds us what needs to be done. After describing how to fight against sin, how to fight against what opposes the truth of love, he now invites us, as we heard, to clothe ourselves in tenderness and compassion (literally, the expression is very daring: to dress oneself) from the depths of mercy, which refers to other words in Hebrew where we are told about the bowels of mercy of God to speak of God's love). "Clothe yourselves with tenderness and compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience."Here we recognize what Paul describes in the letter to the Galatians concerning the fruit of the Holy Spirit (5:22). This is primarily what our families are called to because in baptism we are "placed" with Jesus and because the Holy Spirit, given to us, particularly in the necessary sacrament of Confirmation, unfolds within us the charity of God—the love with which God loves—to enable us to love as Jesus loved us and to fulfill the new commandment of the Gospel. 

So it's about supporting one another, not by shrugging our shoulders, but by loving each other patiently and forgiving one another. Literally, it's about us to forgive from U.S pardon one another as the Lord has pardonedIn our families, it's about showing each other Jesus' love, not through words, but through the way we love one another. And above all, there must be love—we've translated love, yes, but the Greek word is... the agapeCharity, this charity of God, this love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5), this love of God in our hearts without which all our actions are in vain. This is what Paul describes in chapter 13 of the First Letter to the Corinthians: “Even if I had all the faith so as to move mountains, even if I gave all my wealth to the hungry, even if I were to be burned alive, if I lack charity, it profited me nothing.”

And it is this charity that is the most perfect bond and that establishes communion. 

The Holy Family lived this communion. The Holy Family lived this charity daily, and Thérèse, when she thinks of the Holy Family, as when she thinks of the Blessed Virgin, loves to look at the ordinariness of this life. 

On August 20, 1897, while she was in the infirmary, she said (at least, that's what Mother Agnes noted):

…What comforts me when I think of the Holy Family is imagining a completely ordinary life. Not everything we're told, everything we assume. 

[…] But no, everything in their lives happened just like in ours. (CJ 20.8.14)

What serves as a model for us in the Holy Family is precisely the charity lived out daily in the most ordinary tasks. And Paul continues: "Live in gratitude." He doesn't tell us, live in grumbling, live in fear, live in worry… no: Live in thanksgiving, that is, live saying thank you. Live as a continual thanksgiving to God for everything. Why? Because God's love never fails us, because the Lord constantly loves us with his merciful love, and at every moment we can return to that love, and at every moment we can find the Lord's presence with us. Paul continues: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" I often emphasize here the importance for us of reading and meditating on the Holy Scriptures, because it is the word of God that can transform our hearts. which penetrates, says the letter to the Hebrews,Even to the joints of bones and marrow, everything is laid bare before her (Hebrews 4:12-13)The word of God is powerful; it does what it says; if we welcome it in faith, it transforms us little by little.

And then: "Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs." It's not about criticizing each other's habits in order to impose them on others; it's about exhorting one another based on God's wisdom. It's about training ourselves to live the Gospel. How beautiful it is when we can say something to a loved one that comes from the Gospel: "You did such and such, you said such and such, but look how it doesn't conform to what the Lord calls us to live. Repent to the word of the Lord; we will pray together for this." This is how we should learn to reproach one another.

"And whatever you say or do, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." It is in this climate, in this way of life, that Paul then continues by saying: “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, for this is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, or they will become discouraged.”

What Paul calls us to live out among ourselves only has meaning if we live from Christ, if we truly convert to the Lord, and if he reigns in family life. Thérèse writes to her sister, Sister Agnes of Jesus:

Oh, how exiled the earth is!… There is no support to be sought apart from Jesus, for He alone is unchanging. What happiness to think that He cannot change… What joy for our hearts to think that our little family loves Jesus so tenderly; it is always my consolation. (LT 104, May 5-6, 1890, to Sister Agnes of Jesus) 

Well then, in this place where we venerate Saint Thérèse and ask her to help us "love Jesus and make Him loved," in this place where we carefully preserve the relics of her holy parents, Louis and Zélie Martin, let us entrust ourselves to the prayers of this very special family who so loved the Lord. Let us ask them for the grace to know how to welcome the Lord's love into our families, to know how to nurture the presence of Jesus in the heart of our families. Let us entrust to prayer all the families we know who suffer from division, who suffer from tension, with the assurance that God's mercy is powerful and that the Lord continues to give Himself to us so that we may truly love one another as He loves us.

Amen