During the Christmas season, we contemplated the mystery of God made man, the Incarnation, and looked with gratitude to God for creating that vessel through which His will could be accomplished, the Blessed Virgin Mary. But in the excitement of the deep and glorious mysteries of God taking on human flesh, perhaps not enough time is spent considering the life of the Holy Family. Certainly, we have the Sunday after Christmas devoted to the Holy Family, and in that gospel, we read about Mary and Joseph losing Jesus for three days while traveling back from Jerusalem where they had gone for Passover and then finding him in the temple. Apart from this story, we don’t read much about the life of Jesus as a boy. We read that he was obedient to his parents, “and Jesus advanced in wisdom and favor before God and man” (Luke 2:52).
This mystery of the home life of Jesus as a boy contains within it a very satisfactory opportunity to find God in the ordinary and routine. He had a human childhood just as we have. His mother and father bandaged scraped knees, cooked meals, and completed all of the little customs that family life calls for. What a blessing to know that even the smallest and most seemingly insignificant parts of our lives are part of God’s plan to draw us closer to him! With this knowledge, we no longer can consider any part of our lives to be wasted. An opportunity to know and love Jesus more closely comes with every meal we prepare, every task we complete, and every conversation with our parents or children. These aren’t parts of life that we are meant to just endure or let pass by until the next season or feast day rolls around. This is the time that makes the celebration of the feasts so sweet and the penitential seasons so meaningful. This is the time that God conditions our hearts to receive him more fully.
There are many ways to pray and meditate on the Holy Family, including the very simple prayer: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I love you, save souls!” Pope Francis, in his Angelus address on the Feast of the Holy Family last year, recommends that we meditate on the anxiety of Mary and Joseph when they could not find Jesus. “This is why the family of Nazareth is holy: because it was centered on Jesus; all of Mary and Joseph’s attention and concerns were directed toward Him,” he said. He went on to explain that we should have the same anxiety when we forget Jesus. But just as his parents found him in the temple, so too can we find Jesus back at our local parish, waiting for us in the Blessed Sacrament and in every person we meet. Like Mary and Joseph, we have the opportunity to draw near to him at every moment. May God bless you and your families, especially in those ordinary moments of each “ordinary” day.