The holy families

Sisters and brothers in Christ, today is the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

God chose to send his Son to be with a family to shows us all the importance of family relationship between husband and wife, father and children, mother and children, and among the children. God blesses families in their daily struggles in life. Fathers and mothers working multiple jobs to keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and put food on the table. Parents working together to balance work with school and activities for their children while keeping their relationship and marriage loving, supportive, and strong. Even husband and wife without children face their own challenges. Through it all, faith in God and love for each other hold them together and keep the "domestic church" filled with hope, even in times of struggles.

As an immigrant to America, I do not have to imagine what the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph must have felt when they had to flee their own home and go to a foreign land to live. Like many other Vietnamese families, my parents, toting two boys, made the perilous journey from Vietnam to America back in the early 80s. My dad worked as a gas station attendant, a line cook in a restaurant, an assemble line worker, and mechanic to provide for his family. My mom stayed at home until she too had to go to work at a fast food restaurant, as an assembly line work, and a custodial staff at a nursing home to help my dad support three growing boys. There was laughter, tears, joys, and sorrows but, through it all, we stuck together, because of the strength of my parents and help from relatives and friends along the way.

So many families struggle daily, especially in war-torn countries. Fathers feeling helpless. Mothers carrying worries in her heart. And children having to grow up too fast. If we choose to do so, we can see the Holy Family in the families that we encounter every day, with their own struggles but there is also joy. How can we be Christ to them, like Jesus was with Mary and Joseph?

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Gospel of the Day

When the magi had departed, behold,

the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

“Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,

and stay there until I tell you.

Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.”

Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night

and departed for Egypt.

He stayed there until the death of Herod,

that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled,

Out of Egypt I called my son.

When Herod had died, behold,

the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream

to Joseph in Egypt and said,

“Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel,

for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”

He rose, took the child and his mother,

and went to the land of Israel.

But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea

in place of his father Herod,

he was afraid to go back there.

And because he had been warned in a dream,

he departed for the region of Galilee.

He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth,

so that what had been spoken through the prophets

might be fulfilled,

He shall be called a Nazorean.