Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus (Matthew 2:13-15. 19-23)
December 28, 2025
By Fr. Agustin Opalalic
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Family. What a great feast to celebrate almost together in four days! Personally, I would always consider Christmas as the feast of the family and may I share with you my reasons for this consideration during this homily today. During my homily on Christmas day I mentioned that the birth of Jesus in the family of Joseph and Mary is a reaffirmation of our faith that there is only One True God and only one Savior Jesus Christ. This affirmation is urgently necessary today in a present world where the modern polytheism of the capitalism, terrorism, public opinion and illegal drugs, etc. seduce many of us from the listening to the Word of God who became flesh in a family. One of the fundamental human institutions that is being attacked from all sides is the family that may be human in composition, but is also divine in origin and intention.
In the history of salvation of man God has so designed a plan for His only Son to be born in a very natural way, through the human family. God in his infinite wisdom could have easily utilized other means in order to fulfill his plan of bringing into the consciousness of man his love and his loving plan of making man a part of his divine life. He knows the appropriate means by which this mysterious design could be accomplished, and he chose the love of between a man and a woman in the setting of the family to make this wonderful divine act enter into the human reality. He chose Mary and Joseph to become the human instruments in fulfilling his divine plan as a way to introduce the significant role of the bond between a man and a woman that mirrors the divine love for humanity. The same union between Mary and Joseph God also used to in order to carry out His mysterious act of becoming a man in the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem whereby making such community of persons brought about by love a means of concretely manifesting his plan of salvation. What an important role indeed has the Holy Family has become in revealing God’s nature of love and his divine plan that man may be in communion with Him through eternity!
Today we witness a phenomenal attack of these two institutions: marriage and family. It goes without saying how the forces of the currents gods and goddesses that are becoming dominant in human affairs are launching apparently insurmountable attacks against marriage and the family. In no other time in history have we seen how marriage been so misconceived that it has reached into the legislative structures of many nations and affirmed by the unparalleled supremacy of the judiciary in many instances. Our Catholic tradition that is founded on the law of nature and the tenets of divine revelation staunchly defends the truth and reality that marriage can only be established between a man and a woman who freely give themselves to each other in love in an exchange of consent that no human institution should never put asunder. The main reason for such partnership between a man a woman is in order to form a family that can only happen between a man and a woman who love each other and united in love become co-creators of God in procreating children and establish a human family. This is in fact the reason why our Church has declared that the family is a domestic Church by which every member can sanctify each other and the family itself an instrument of collaborating with the whole Church in its mission of bringing the message of salvation to the whole world.
As we celebrate this great feast of the Most Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph immediately after the celebration of Christmas, let us pray, my dear brothers and sisters, that our families become truly be as they should be! Let the Most Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, keep us always enlightened so that we can be faithful, loving, and united as families of faith all over the whole world that would combat with courage and vanquish with confidence the ever growing attacks of the forces of the gods and goddesses that Christmas, the birth of Christ, has also overcome.
