A holy family always puts God at the center

Msgr. Roger R. Smith is pastor of St. Patrick Church in Corpus Christi and Vicar for Priests for the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

The Church offers to us the example of the most holy family that ever existed—the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What peace, joy and love must have reigned in that family even despite all the challenges they faced: poverty, persecution, being aliens in a foreign land, the challenges of daily life.

Some years ago a survey was done of clergy and counselors asking them what they thought were the traits of a healthy family. There were more than 1,000 responses and from those responses the following list of top 14 traits was put together. It is a good inventory for every family.

1. In a healthy family, the members communicate with one another, beginning with the parents.
2. The members of a healthy family support each other emotionally.
3. The healthy family teaches respect for every member.
4. The healthy family teaches trust, openness and unconditional love.
5. The healthy family has a sense of humor; members can admit when they are wrong and even laugh together at mistakes.
6. The members of a healthy family share responsibility for the daily chores of the family and also the mood of the family.
7. The healthy family clearly teaches that there is moral right and wrong.
8. The healthy family develops family traditions especially concerning holidays, birthdays, etc. even when the members begin to move away.
9. The healthy family takes time to interact and spends leisure time with one another.
10. The healthy family fosters family conversation, especially at meals, at least once a day.
11. The healthy family has a religious core rather than a materialistic core and attends church together and prays together.
12. The healthy family respects the privacy of its members; we all need some time alone.
13. The healthy family values service to others and gets involved in helping others; they have a sense of a larger world than just me or the family.
14. The healthy family realizes that no family is perfect and that we all can still learn. They know when to seek help for their problems and to recognize when there is a need for outside help and counseling.

Looking at the Holy Family, we see that they were faced with many challenges from the beginning. Mary and Joseph’s long journey to Bethlehem in the last days of her pregnancy, giving birth to Jesus in a stable with a manger as a crib, having to flee to Egypt when Herod threatened to kill the child and surviving there without the support of family and friends. Finally, when they returned to Nazareth, they had the challenge of making a daily living supported only by Joseph’s carpentry trade.

Yet in all of this, Mary and Joseph always put God at the center, realizing that their vocation was to raise the boy Jesus, preparing him for his mission to be our Savior. Indeed, on the Feast of the Holy Family, we celebrated the healthiest and holiest family ever. Through their example and prayers, may every family be healthy and holy.