The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph present us a model for family life. This is so vital toady in our communities, our country and the world.

We hear a constant barrage about the breakdown in family life that is the root cause of the many social ills in our society. There is no doubt that the family is the foundation for a just and civil society. 

Being born into our world, God chose to assume human form sanctifying and glorifying humanity. Similarly, Jesus, in entering family life, glorifies and sanctifies it.

With all its ups and downs, the family is a seedbed and in its soil is sown the call to share in Christ’s holiness and mission. One author put it this way, “…we don’t become holy despite the hustle-bustle of family life, but in and through it.”

How often we have been told and believe that a serious pursuit of holiness required opting out of marriage to enter a monastery, that holiness was about lots of quiet prayer and apostolic work. Noisy family life was a distraction to all this.

The role of married people was limited to going to Mass and receiving the sacraments, obeying the Ten Commandments. The feast of the Holy Family shows us that the nitty gritty of family life can be a road to profound personal transformation and communion with God.

The Gospel for the Feast of the Holy Family has three movements. Joseph, instructed by the “angel of the Lord”, takes Jesus into Egypt. Then Joseph is told to take Jesus back to Israel.

But Joseph is again warned in a dream and decides to go to Galilee. All three movements speak to the obedience of Joseph to the will of God. Joseph is a model for our modern-day family especially fathers. 

“Get up and take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt…”

Joseph allows himself to be guided by God. Again as fathers and mothers we are called to be ready to recognise and discern God’s guidance when He speaks to us, through a friend, a teacher, an experience, or a stranger so that we would be open to His intervention in our lives and that of our families.

Especially, today, when fathers are not living up to their responsibility in leading their families, Joseph is a role model for us to follow. He is also a role model for the mothers among us who have to take decisions for their families.

We reflect on those who bring messages to improve our family life. The crisis of parenting now needs to be addressed with a concerted effort.

There is a movement called Creative Parenting for a New Era in our country championed by Joan Bishop. They go around in our communities training and spreading messages to fathers and mothers how to be creative in nurturing our families, to get up and take our families into Egypt, a different, sometimes unfamiliar way of developing healthy family relationships.

“So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt.”

Egypt was the logical place to find refuge, as it was outside the dominion of King Herod, and throughout the Old Testament it was the standard place of exile for those unsafe in Palestine.

Parents often say to me that most, if not all of their family decisions are taken through prayer. They allow God to speak to them when making decisions for the well-being of the children and the family, in deciding schools for the children, in seeking guidance to meet financial challenges, whether to migrate, whether to change jobs. Like Joseph they are allowing themselves to be guided by God.

As fathers we are called to take decisions that will keep our family safe, which sometimes means to escape into unfamiliar territory, Egypt, a place of refuge, where we could find comfort.

In our world, there are many families who have uprooted themselves because of persecution and forced to move to a new home. I think of all those people who have been forced to leave our country for fear of kidnapping, fathers fearing for the safety of their family, especially their children and going abroad to live. 

We pray for family life in our country, that on this Feast of the Holy Family, we may become more like Joseph, Mary, and Jesus and be a true reflection of the Divine Love of God.

Lord, there are so many distractions to fulfilling holiness in our families -- long working hours, the need for both parents to be working outside the home, emotional and psychological issues, distorted value systems,

Give us the strength and courage like Joseph to get up and take our families away from these distractions into a place of refuge so that when we are called we would return to a place of comfort to grow our family in holiness.

We pray for those who provide counselling and mentoring to families in crises,
They are God’s angels bringing messages that would guide our families to know how to deal with the distractions to good family living.

Use them to bring holiness into families, our communities and our country.

Gospel Meditations for December are by Gary Tagallie of the parish of St Philip &St James, Chaguanas. The Programme Manager of the Poverty Reduction programme of the Ministry of Social Development, Gary and his wife Sheila Maria are the parents of four young children.