HAPPY FEAST DAY OF THE HOLY FAMILY, LA SAGRADA FAMILIA of Jesus, Mary and Joseph! 

The last Sunday of the year is dedicated for this feast, and it is fitting to note that as we end this year, we look once again to La Sagrada Familia for inspiration, guidance and encouragement for our own families as we embark for another year of challenges, graces and faith journey. 

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2223, it stated: “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones. Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children.”

The home is the first school of children where they learn and live out the values and virtues. It is with the guidance and example of parents that children can learn how to live a meaningful relationship with one another. The home has a quiet yet forceful impact in the lives of children as well as with parents where values are nurtured, and virtues are given priorities. 

A happy home is one built on character. Our first reading from the Book of Sirach presents to us clear guidance on character building for children. It says, “Whoever honors his father atones for his sins… he stores up riches who reveres his mother… whoever honors his father is gladdened by children… whoever reveres his father will live a long life… he who obeys his father brings comfort to his mother.” The character becomes the result of the values nurtured like gratefulness and respect. 

The home is like a confessional, not a courtroom. In the courtroom, interrogation, arguments, pinpointing, lies, and deception are inevitable. There is always a point where one is indicted or charged and another is freed; and in strictest sense, nobody wins. But in the confessional, there is openness, understanding, humility and forgiveness. Through the parents, the home becomes a place where one is comforted and given a chance to be a better person. 

On this feast, we don’t just remember our own families and how to follow the examples of La Sagrada Familia. We especially remember families who are in deep crises caused by deep wounds of division, domestic violence, scarcity of family basic needs, those who are affected by civil violence and war and the uncertainties of what might the future bring. May Mary and Joseph who were united in Jesus be the source of inspiration and strength. This feast is a reminder that there will always be a room for renewal and hope both in faith and relationship with one another.