Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

The Holy Family is our model for living.

 

Our life is not just the usual life, filled with work and sleep and eating and resting. For we are also creatures with a soul and are in communion with our God. This means life has a supernatural element that goes beyond the day-to-day activities and focuses on eternal life rather than the immediate physical world. We are Children of God.

 

The Holy Family shows us how to live in our true nature. We are made in the likeness of God and baptized into the family, the Holy Family, with Mary as our mother also.

 

We are meant to be more than just what we do each day for our true nature is spirit and body.

 

 

But we live in a world and are surrounded by many who only believe in what they can touch and see. They limit their life to the physical world and ignore or reject their own soul. They have prioritized this world over eternal life and ignore the gaping hole inside them.

 

That hole. That unfulfilled piece of us, is the soul that knows where it belongs and whose it is. So, it aches for union with God. And many feel that something is missing so they try and fill it with the physical and immediate. And are never satisfied. Never feel the joy and peace that comes with the Child of God living for Jesus Christ.

 

Mary and Joseph from the beginning were righteous and holy people. When Jesus was conceived, they did everything knowing Jesus was the Messiah and Holy God. So their life revolved around their faith and hope in God’s will, which was now Word made flesh in Jesus Christ.

 

We too are called to live just as focused a life where the will of God is our light, the path we seek in all things. As we too follow the will of God we will find our life, the life set aside for us will unfold before us.

 

With our spirit aligned with Jesus and our actions and life filled with Jesus at the center we will live a holy life too. That is what we are called to do. Be holy. Be saints.

 

 

As we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family we should ask ourselves are we living, following their example. Joseph and Mary gave up anything that stood in the way of doing God’s will. They gave up plans to do God’s will. They even suffered hardship and left home and comfort again and again in order to follow their faith and path set for them by God.

 

How are we doing? How are we making decisions for our life? Is it by asking God first what is his will?

 

Do our plans include a faith-filled life growing closer to God?

 

If our plans don’t include time to worship. To listen to God. We may very well be off track. If our career choices seem neutral to God, we are deceiving ourselves for nothing we do is neutral. It is either a decision that supports us following God or it is not for us.

If we have choices to make that are difficult or decisions to resolve, ask God for his will in the matter?

 

But like the Holy Family we always must do what we know is the journey or path that is the way set for us by God.

 

When we are on the path, we will know it. If we are struggling with this, make use of the Sacraments regularly and read scripture. If we struggle with decisions in life, the closer we are to the Word of God, the clearer things will be. It may not feel like more prayer and going to confession will help you make the right decisions in life, but it will. For God is about order and everything in its time. While the evil one is about chaos and confusion and being in a hurry. Slow down, let God in his time come into your heart and mind and guide you in all things.