Holy Family

Holy Family A 

Readings: Sirach 3:2‑6, 12‑14  Colossians 3:12‑21  Matthew 2:13‑15,19‑23

During the Christmas season the Church celebrates the incarnation by dwelling on various aspects of this mystery.  This year's feast of the Holy Family recalls that Jesus and his family had to flee into Egypt, like their ancestors, in order to escape the wrath of King Herod.  As we listen to Joseph's obedience to the angel's commands concerning "the child and his mother," let us pray in faith the words of the responsorial psalm: "Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways" (Ps 128). 

The reading from Sirach is a wisdom instruction based on the commandment to honor father and mother (Ex 20:12; Deut 5:16).   This commandment obligates us to care for our elderly parents when their health and minds fail.  It has much to say to our time when aged parents are often neglected by their children. “My son take care of your father when he is old; . . Even if his mind fail, be considerate with him; revile him not all the days of his life.” According to Sirach, care for elderly parents is a way to atone for one’s sins. “Whoever honors his father atones for sins;/ . . .  he stores up riches who reveres his mother.” 

Paul's instructions to the Colossians put family obligations in a Christian context.  Christians are to divest themselves of their old lives of sin (see Col 3:5‑9) and clothe themselves with Christian virtues: heartfelt mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and especially love, "the bond of perfection" (3:12‑14).  Paul's instructions to husbands and fathers in a patriarchal society are particularly shaped by the ideal of Christian love. “Husbands, love your wives and avoid any bitterness toward them. . . .  Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.” 

In Matthew’s nativity story the child Jesus recapitulates his people's and Moses' experience in Egypt, as he fulfills the prophecies concerning the Messiah.  Matthew also foreshadows Jesus' destiny to be rejected in Jerusalem but to be accepted by the Gentile world, represented by the magi from the East who follow a mysterious star and come with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to joyfully worship the child king.  In striking contrast to the magi, King Herod the Great, like the Pharaoh of the Exodus, attempts to slaughter the child by killing all the two year old males in the city of Bethlehem.  Jesus, like Moses, narrowly escapes death as child, when God sends an angel to warn Joseph in a dream: “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you.  Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.

Matthew understands Jesus' descent and return from Egypt as the Messianic fulfillment of a prophetic text in Hosea: "Out of Egypt I called my son" (Mt 2:15; see Hos 11:1).

After Herod's death, God continues to providentially guide the child's life through angelic dreams and the dutiful obedience of Joseph.  Like Moses who could return to Egypt with the death of the Pharaoh who sought his life (Ex 4:19), Jesus may return to the land of Israel with Herod's death. “When Herod had died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.’”  When Joseph obediently returns to the land of Israel, he discovers that Herod Archelaus, also a wicked king, had succeeded his father as ruler of Judea, and so, having been warned in a  dream, he settles in Nazareth, a town in Galilee.  Matthew even attempts to relate this obscure place to a scriptural text: "so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He shall be called a Nazorean’" (Mt 2:23; see Is 11:1; Jgs 13:5,7).  In the troubled and frightening events of this child's life, God is preparing an obedient son who will say to John at the time of his baptism: “. . . it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”