By Fr. Glenn Jones:

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and will continue to have a blessed Christmas season. The coming new year, too, inspires within us new hopes and aspirations, and we know how much those good anticipations rely on the health of our relationships with one another—especially with family.

So, it’s quite apropos in multiple ways that, on the Sunday after Christmas and after celebration of the remembrance of Jesus’ birth, Catholics celebrate the feast of the Holy Family and invited to look not so much at angels or miracles, but at a home. A family. That of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

After their flight to, and return from, Egypt, we read in Matthew’s Gospel this year on this feast that they settled in Nazareth (Matthew 2:23). It’s a modest home in a modest town, and the family no doubt knew routine and work, laughter and silence like their neighbors. And, like their neighbors, also would also know anxiety, misunderstanding, and loss.

The Gospel that we read at Catholic Mass on this feast every third year (not this year—Luke 2:41-52) does not present a very sentimental picture, albeit an instructive one. Mary and Joseph lose Jesus for three days—enough to panic any parent. After all, they’re in Jerusalem at Passover when it’s most crowded, with many people from all regions … and no doubt from all moralities, or lack thereof. Was he lost? Kidnapped? Dead in some forgotten well or alleyway?

Any parent knows the panic of losing a child for even three minutes, much less three days. We are told that Mary and Joseph in that episode searched “with great anxiety,” no doubt a remarkable understatement. Imagine their angst, not only having lost a beloved child, but may have believed they had failed in their guardianship of the Son of God! So, for all their virtues, the Holy Family was certainly not immune to fear, confusion, or unanswered questions.

But that is precisely why they are holy. For holiness is not the absence of struggle and trial; it is fidelity in the midst of it.

Of course, the story continues, Jesus was found teaching in the Temple, as He would return to do twenty years in the future. But for now, Jesus “went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.” Despite being the Son of God, Jesus was obedient to His human guardians. The Creator submitting Himself to created parents. For God entrusted His Son not to perfection, but to faith. But that tells us something important: our families do not have to be perfect to be holy. They are called to be faithful.

As a comparison, we might imagine a carpenter who built two houses side by side. The first homeowner insists on beautiful materials, elegant décor, and strict rules—everything to look right. The second homeowner focuses less on appearance and more on quality and foundation, fixing cracks, reinforcing weak supports, and making repairs when needed. When a storm comes, the apparently beautiful house collapses, for much like Jesus’ example of a house built on sand (Matthew 7:26-27) it had never been reinforced in those things that really matter. But the second house remains standing—not because it looks perfect, but because it is continually tended and structurally improved—like a house built on rock.

The Holy Family teaches us that God chooses humility and ordinary family life as the place where holiness unfolds and blossoms. Jesus did not grow up in a palace or a temple, but in a simple home—learning to speak, to pray, to work, to obey, and to serve. He in His divinity knew all, of course, but in His second nature as Man He learned experientially and thus “grew in wisdom” as Luke writes. One might liken it to a car designer/maker who knows the car’s every detail but nonetheless learns by actually driving it. Likewise, Jesus knows us because He has lived as us, as we read: “he had to be made like his brethren in every respect …” (Hebrews 2:17)

Families are like that. Holiness within them does not come from looking ideal but can only thrive from daily attention and repair—forgiveness, patience, prayer, and returning again and again to love.

Mary and Joseph did not understand Jesus’ words and actions when they found Him in the temple. Yet, they pondered (“His mother kept all these things in her heart”), and they trusted God even when they did not have clarity.

Similarly, spouses may not always understand one another. Parents may not always understand their children. Even more so, children may not always understand their parents … though children would be wise to remember that their parents have been where they are in life, but not vice versa. Yet holiness grows when we choose presence to one another over perfection. We want people to put up with our imperfections; should we not then put up with theirs?

The Mass reading from St. Paul reminds us to “put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.” (Colossians 3:12-13) These virtues are far more than just feelings; they are deliberate decisions and actions. ALL virtues, in fact, are decisions and actions. Compassion is chosen. Patience is practiced. Forgiveness is learned and granted.

The feast of the Holy Family is not meant to discourage those whose families are broken, strained, or incomplete. On the contrary, like the new year, the feast gives both hope and direction. Jesus Himself grew up in a family that fled violence, lived as refugees in Egypt, struggled economically, and faced misunderstanding. He knows family life from the inside.

So today in this feast, the questions is not: Is your family ideal? But rather: Is your family open to God? Do we pray, even briefly? Do we forgive, even when it is hard? Do we stay, even when it would be easier to leave? If so, holiness is already at work. The family home is a rose: with constant attention, it can become both beautiful and fragrant. In this new year, may our homes be places where God feels welcome—not because they are perfect, but because He is allowed to dwell there.

Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.