As we celebrate this year’s feast of the Holy Family, we also bring to a close the Holy Year of Hope. As this Holy Year began, Pope Francis reminded us that hope “dwells in every human heart” and that the Jubilee was meant to open doors—especially for the forgotten and the imprisoned. His gesture of opening a Holy Door in a prison taught us that no life is beyond God’s reach.
As the Holy Year also saw the beginning of a new pontificate, Pope Leo XIV urged us to remain “pilgrims of hope”, insisting that the Jubilee is not an event but a way of living. He called us to reject division and to see Christ as “a door that unites.”
With the closing of this Holy Year let us look to the Holy Family as a School of Hope!
We are living in a world and time that knows great uncertainty. As our Gospel today demonstrates, this was the world Joseph and Mary faced as they brought Jesus into the world. The Holy Family knew fear, displacement, danger and poverty. Yet they lived with trust in God’s promises, even when their path and future were unclear. Once they returned from Egypt to Isreal and established their home in Nazareth, their home became a place where God’s hope took flesh. The same can be true for each of our families today. The Holy Family demonstrates that the theological virtues of faith, hope and love grow in relationships. Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph and that he grew in wisdom and grace. Jesus as the Son of God humbly took on our human flesh. In the same humble fashion, he was obedient to Mary Joseph. The Holy Family gives instruction for all families to be places, relationships marked by love, sacrifice and daily fidelity. St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians tells us to be ‘imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us. (5:1) He goes on to say about family life that we should submit to one another in reverence for Christ. (5:21) Families today – whatever their shape – are called to be workshops of hope, where forgiveness is practiced, burdens are shared, and faith is handed on.
During this Holy Year, pilgrims were granted an opportunity to pass through a holy door to experience the grace and mercy of God in fresh and new ways. In a similar way, the door of each home is an opportunity to recognize that as Jesus chose to be born into a human family, we are to recognize and welcome Christ each time we pass in and out of the doors of our homes.
Some of the prayers for the blessing of a home come to mind today which are instructive about each home being a school of hope and love. For instance, one prayer asks the Lord to be close to each member of the household, to be their shelter while they are home, their companion when they are away and their welcome guest when they return. Another prayer requests that the peace of Christ rule each of our hearts and that the Word of Christ in all its richness dwell in us so that whatever we do will be done in the name of the Lord. (Book of Blessings)
I want to close with a brief reflection on the genealogy of Jesus and the gift of a family name. Matthew and Luke offer two versions of the genealogy of Jesus. One begins with Abraham and works forward to Joseph. The other begins with Joseph and works all the way back to Adam. This account follows the pattern: Joseph, son of Heli, the son of Matthat, and concludes with Adam, son of God. Essentially, this reminds us that we are all descendants of Adam, who was the first born of God; meaning we are all children of God, members of the one family of God. Therein lies the source of the dignity of each person.
Each genealogy reminds us that the family tree of Jesus, as our own, had its share of both sinners and saints.
I remember when I was much younger my grandfather, my Dad’s dad, told me the greatest gift I received was my family name. It was a name held in respect. He told me to live a life that would bring further honor and respect to that name.
My friends, as this Holy Year concludes on the feast of the Holy Family, know that you are a member of God’s family. Live each day with the dignity of being called a Child of God, for so indeed you are. Live each day in hope for you have been redeemed by Christ.
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