Feast of the Holy Family

Fr. Mark Gatto

Preached: December 29, 2024

A Japanese magazine had a picture of a butterfly on one of its pages, that was a dull grey, until someone puts their hand on it. Then the warmth of the hand causes the special printing inks to react and the dull grey is transformed into flashing colours.

What other things can be transformed by the warmth of your love and your touch? How about your family? Or your place of work? Or the place where you study? Or your parish? The world is hungry for the warmth and touch of someone who cares – who really cares.

In the Letter to the Colossians we heard in our second reading today, St. Paul presents a wonderful vision of what we are called to be and to live. “,… clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.”  He continues with wonderful words that would be good for each of us to reflect upon in prayer. Paul sums it all up, “clothes yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” We are to have the warmth of the love of God. We are to touch one another with the warmth of someone who really cares.

The hardest and most important thing that most of us do in this life is living our family life. Forming a healthy, loving family is really hard. If we are honest, most of us have somewhat dysfunctional families, there are things that we have to admit are not so good. This is due to the fact that families are formed by human beings, who are sinners, sometimes selfish, sometimes insensitive… So, our families are not so perfect, not so holy, we certainly do not see it possible to compare our families to the Holy Family.

Yet, God entrusts children to human families. So, we need to do the best we can with what we have in our families. The first step is that I put God first in my life. For when I love and obey God first, then I will become the best parent, the best child, the best sibling. For when I love and obey God then I will be honest, I will be committed, I will be faithful, I will keep promises, I will care about others, I will forgive. All of the things required for good, healthy family life.

Each of our own families, the church family and the human family in our world are in need of people who bring the warmth of love, who bring the touch of someone who really cares. As St. Paul says, “clothe yourselves with love.” This is the only way to make anyone or anything holy.