God Himself is the original family, the original Holy Family. The Trinity is where life is eternally generated in love, where life and love are welcomed and reciprocated. It is where love’s fruits of unity, joy and peace are experienced in perfect fulness. It is where each person pours himself out in total self-surrender to the others, giving way to the others. It is where they know each other totally, transparently and intimately.

This is what God also wanted for the human family, created in His image and likeness. But He wanted the family not only to imitate God from the outside. He wanted it to participate in His inner life, to become another collective member of the divine family. Sin got in the way of that, as we know. Because of it, from the outset, division, shame and blame marked marriage and family; anger, envy and fratricide spoiled the first sibling relationship. Satan’s hatred of everything divine spilled over into his hatred for everything human. But Satan’s plan for the destruction of marriage and the family as willed by God was no match for God’s own plan to redeem and renew them by grace. Even so, grace is not magic. For grace to achieve its goal, the cooperation of human freedom is needed. God does not save us without us. The cooperation of grace and freedom involves struggle and effort. There will be moments of weakness and failure and moments of strength and triumph. Sin and Satan don’t give up so easily, so the path to victory will involve the way of the Cross.

And we see this in the experience of the Holy Family of Nazareth itself. It was filled with grace and with three people whose wills could not have been more attuned to God’s will. But the shadow of envy and hatred from outside still tested their fidelity. The mortal threat to the Child, the forced exile into Egypt with all of the challenges and dangers that must have entailed; the uncertainty and apprehension of their stay in Egypt combined with worries about their future return; Joseph’s particular concerns about providing food and shelter and safety, not to mention finding the money to do so; and, then, the anxiety of the return journey and choice of where to live: all of this proves that the presence and working of grace in our fallen world does not protect us from suffering. But the fact that they came through it all in the end also proves that when we are obedient to the will of God, He will direct our paths to a safe and salutary end.

This gives us the hope of victory no matter the shadows and even failures which affect every family. We all know the inner struggle we each have to make individually to try and respond to the will and grace of God: how hard it can be to keep the commandments of God and to live a life of sustained virtue and self-giving! In the family, it’s no different. In some ways, it’s even more difficult because the personal struggle we each have is multiplied by the number of others in the family. And yet, it’s not only the struggle which is multiplied: so is the grace, if we open our hearts to God, seek to do His will and ask for His help. As the response to the psalm today puts it: Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in His ways.

The advice for families we just heard from the book of Sirach and St. Paul in the Letter to the Colossians can sound idealistic – if family life is considered from a merely human perspective. The ingredient which transforms it from idealism into realism is the openness of all family members to the will, the presence and the power of God. That is why marriage in church is so important. It is to start building your house on rock, not on the shifting sands of self or of the fashion of the time. When a married couple then continues to build by observing the Sunday obligation, the ups and downs of the week are brought back to base. You receive new strength and grace from the Word of God and from the Eucharist to go on building the week after. In fact, in between Sundays, you can hopefully learn to pray daily together, to bring your worries and problems to the light of the Holy Spirit. Habits of prayer and reflection on your life together under the light of God’s Word can give new insight and direction. The Holy Family which is the Trinity, and the Holy Family which is Jesus, Mary and Joseph, are not alien or extraneous to your own family hearth. They are a constant benevolent presence and power who love you and love with you, who suffer with you, who share your moments of fragility and failure as well as your joys and successes.

As for the children of your married love, the best thing you can do for them is to bring them for baptism. What you are doing is bringing them to receive the eternal life of the Trinity. You are recognising that they have only been entrusted to you for a time because, before ever they were conceived and after they will die, they belong to God. And when you speak to them of God’s love and mercy as they grow up, and they see it in the way you yourselves live and love and worship, they will grow with a formidable inner strength and be blessed with a rich spiritual and moral life. And when they make their mistakes and rebellions, you and they will have a deep treasure of wisdom and courage from God to find the best way out of their trouble. They will one day thank and praise God face to face for the precious gift you have given them of putting God first; of having recourse to God first in trouble; of trusting God when the shades of life overshadow their hope and understanding.

When marriage and family are rooted in obedience to God and in the faithful and loving reception of the Eucharist and other sacraments, life can throw at you what it may: the rains may pour, the floods rise, the gales blow, but your house will stand firm, founded on the rock of God. We don’t know how Joseph’s life ended, but we know that Jesus and Mary had to face untold suffering as theirs did. Far from abandoning them in that hour, God walked with them. No matter what you go through in this life as families, your fidelity to God will also bring you to the glorious end which the Holy Family now enjoys. May God’s blessings be upon your families and may your hearts be fixed on Him now and always. He is not the enemy of your happiness but its sure foundation and eternal guarantee. So, give Him your all. Hold nothing back, not now, not ever.