The Holy Family: Resilience, Perseverance, and Grace

The family unit has been under increased pressure from society and so many families have accounts of sadness, conflict, and are on the verge of disintegration. The recent homilies from Pope Francis center around the 100^th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions in Fatima and the revelation that Mary told the children there that the final battle with the devil will center on the family.

The Holy Family serves as a model, as an example for all of our families in the transformative power of love, grace, respect, patience, humility, and kindness. This is an especially important example to draw upon given the increasingly prevalent forces of social media, the internet, and the secular media agenda that can serve to separate families rather than unite them.

The family unit in our society is also under attack by substance abuse, addictions, and messaging that promotes individualism. The Holy Family is an example of hope, resilience, and perseverance in the face of these societal constructs and family tragedies.

Our Blessed Lady and Saint Joseph made the difficult trek from Galilee to Bethlehem, which with Mary in the late stages of her pregnancy, had to have been arduous. They persevered with faith and grace and the Birth of Our Savior in that stable in Bethlehem was the result. Their actions displayed their trust in God and serve as an important reminder to families today to do the same.

Some families have to deal with being uprooted and transplanted to a different home, in a different city, a different part of the country, or in some cases a different country altogether. In those cases, it is helpful to think of the flight into Egypt which the Holy Family made together after the Nativity of Our Lord.

When Saint Joseph was warned by the angel in his dream to take his family and flee, that had to have been an incredibly hard decision. In those times, imagine travelling with a newborn child and your wife who has just given birth. The Holy Family put their faith in God and journeyed across the desert and over treacherous terrain into Egypt, a foreign place, where they knew nobody. They knew they would be together, that they had each other, and that example of resilience and love can be a source of inspiration for families today in that same situation.

Some families have been devastated by the loss of a child, which is a pain that is unimaginable to many, myself included. The Holy Family provides two situations in which this occurred to them: the Loss of the Child Jesus, and the Crucifixion of Our Lord. It can be a source of reflection and prayer for your family to imagine what Mother Mary and Saint Joseph felt when they lost Jesus on the caravan out of Jerusalem. They must have been frantic thinking they had lost not only their child, but the Son of God.

Then place your anguish and pain into the hands of Mary, Our Mother, who knows and understands fully what it feels like to lose a child. Our Lady witnessed Her Son get tortured, ridiculed, beaten, insulted, and nailed to a Cross to die. Our Blessed Mother knows the love of mothers and fathers for their children, and knows fully the separation caused by death within the human condition.

Many families deal with the loss of a parent or grandparent and the sorrow as well as grief that comes with that type of loss. The Holy Family again provides an example with the loss of Saint Joseph, who by tradition is believed to have died before Jesus went to the Cross for our salvation.

Our Catholic tradition teaches us that Holy Mother Mary and Our Lord Jesus were at the bedside of Saint Joseph in prayer and solidarity. They were at his bedside for comfort and to ask God for the grace of a peaceful death for Saint Joseph. This can serve as an example for our families today when faced with similar circumstances. The loss of a family member can be met with solidarity, comforting each other, and with prayer.

The Holy Family, as you would well expect, must have prayed together very often. The Bible teaches us that Mary and Joseph made the trip to Jerusalem at Passover when Jesus was growing up. They undoubtedly read from sacred Scripture together as a family. The Holy Family followed and observed the religious customs of that time as a family unit.

This example can serve to work within your family as a way to foster prayer and dedication to our Catholic faith as one family unit. I have done presentations on the concept of family prayer, and in the process of that preparation I learned that 90% of marriages where they prayed together as a family stayed together. That is a powerful statistic in a country with an over 50% divorce rate. The power of prayer cannot be underscored.

The actual practice of regular family prayer is achieved in the same manner as anything else within the family: through a routine. It may have to start as a one night a week type of practice, but it needs to done in some type of routine to be successful. A good example is every Wednesday night is Rosary Night, where the family prays the Holy Rosary together and maybe incorporates a reflection from the Holy Bible.

Another example could be a Bible study night, where one night a week you read from the Holy Bible together as a family and discuss what the readings mean. It could also be just simply getting together at the dinner table and praying together before a meal each night, which is a great starting point for any family seeking to move prayer into a more prominent place within their family.

The perils of society are very strong forces which seek through financial burdens, illness or disease, fatigue, anger, jealousy, avarice, or pride; to pull apart the family unit. The challenge is for us to overcome those forces, and that is where we as One Body of Christ can come together on a parish community level to help lift each other up.

The challenge is for us as parents, children, brothers, sisters, husbands, and wives to fight against those forces of evil in society. This will be, for many of us, the toughest fight we will ever be involved with, but it is the most important one. The survival of the family unit is critical, and Our Lord wants us to have strong, loving families because He chose to come down from Heaven and enter human form as a baby, as part of a family.

The grace of God provides us with the example of The Holy Family to guide us through the rough and rocky terrain of our lives. Their faith, love, hope, strength, courage, grace, mercy, and resilience serves as a reminder of what our families could be become if we place our families into the hands of Our Heavenly Father.

May the grace and faith of The Holy Family be with you and your families each day. May the Blessed Mother bless and guide all mothers through the perils of maintaining a family against the pull of society. May Saint Joseph bless and guide all fathers to be strong models and examples of God’s love and mercy to their families. May the Lord Jesus, the Savior who set us all free, save your families from the anger and pain that can pull apart the sacred family unit.

May God, Our Heavenly Father bless and protect you and your families and hold you all in the palm of His Hand.