Feast of the Holy Family 2025

The recent tragic death of the actor and director Rob Reiner made me think about his most famous role — “Meathead” on All in the Family. 

So many episodes of that show took place around the dinner table. 

A place meant for nourishment and togetherness often became a place of arguments, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings.

And yet, that’s what made the show so honest. 

Because the dinner table has always been one of the most revealing places in family life. 

It’s where we share food, but also opinions. 

It’s where love is expressed, tensions surface, and sometimes old wounds are reopened. 

What struck me then, and still strikes me now, is how little has really changed. 

Families today still wrestle with many of the same challenges — just like that fictional family gathered around their table.

That’s why the Feast of the Holy Family matters so much.

Because the Holy Family is not presented to us as a picture-perfect ideal meant to make us feel inadequate. 

They are given to us as a guide — a compass — for navigating the real challenges that every family faces.

In today’s Gospel, we don’t see a quiet, peaceful home. 

We see fear and danger. 

We see a family forced to flee in the middle of the night. 

Joseph wakes from a dream and is told that his child’s life is in danger. 

There’s no time to debate or plan. He simply rises, takes the child and his mother, and leaves.

This is stress. This is uncertainty. This is family life under pressure. 

And yet, in the middle of it all, Joseph listens to God and acts out of love. Mary trusts. Jesus is carried. 

Faithfulness — not perfection — is what holds this family together.

Our first reading from Sirach reminds us that family relationships are holy and demanding. 

Honoring parents, caring for them in their weakness, being patient when relationships are complicated — none of this is easy. 

Sirach doesn’t pretend family life is simple. Instead, he reminds us that kindness and care within families matter deeply to God.

Saint Paul, in the second reading, tells us how families survive and grow in holiness. He doesn’t say, “Make sure your family never struggles.” 

He says, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 

Bear with one another. Forgive one another. Above all, put on love.

Those words only make sense because family life can be hard. 

We hurt the people we love most. We disappoint one another. We carry old wounds. 

And yet, Paul reminds us that forgiveness and patience are not optional — they are the very fabric of Christian family life.

The Holy Family shows us that holiness doesn’t come from having everything figured out. 

It comes from trusting God when we don’t. 

It comes from choosing love when it would be easier to give up. 

It comes from showing up, day after day, in ordinary, sometimes messy, family life.

And where does all of this lead? 

Nazareth. No miracles. No headlines. 

Just quiet, faithful living. That’s where Jesus grows. That’s where holiness takes root.

So today, on this Feast of the Holy Family, we don’t ask whether our families measure up. 

Instead, we ask whether we are willing to let God work in the reality of our family life — with its joys and struggles, its love and its wounds.

And in a few moments, we will be gathered again — not around our own family tables, but around this one — where Christ feeds us with His own life and love. 

Strengthened by Him, we are sent back to our homes to live what we have received.

Because the Holy Family reminds us of this simple truth: 

God does His greatest work not in perfect families, but in faithful ones.