The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Sunday, December 28, 2025

Watch to this homily (begins at 30:40) 

     In the warm glow of Christmas, we have gathered to celebrate the feast of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. On Christmas, the focus was on Jesus, the Word become flesh, the babe of Bethlehem lying in the manger, visited by lowly shepherds who themselves were visited by angels. Today, the focus shifts to Mary and Joseph, whose joy at the birth of their son was rudely interrupted when they had to flee for their lives to a foreign land in order to escape the treachery of the jealous and murderous King Herod.

        The story of the Holy Family should ring true for us if we but stop to think. Moments of pure joy in life don’t tend to last very long, do they? So often, painful and unanticipated realities arise that all-too-quickly bring us back to earth. This is something we all experience, and we are in good company. The best. We are in the company of the Holy Family.

        The gospel account of the Flight into Egypt is spare, leaving much to the imagination. But it’s not difficult to fill in the blanks. To be told that the highest authority in the land, the king, is searching for your child in order to destroy him and that you need to run for your lives – and his – had to have been a harrowing experience. And so must have been the journey into Egypt where everything was strange and new – the language, the living conditions, the culture. Everything! And there was the uncertainty about how long this exile would last. The message Joseph had received from the angel was very open-ended. He was simply told to “stay there until I tell you otherwise.” None of this remotely suggests the romantic representations of the Flight into Egypt that we see on Christmas cards!
 
        I said that we are in good company. We are. And so are the millions of refugees and migrants around the world who are daily in the news and too often in the cross-hairs. Like the Holy Family, most of them are fleeing cruel, unjust and violent conditions in their homelands, fleeing for their lives and the lives of their children. As you know, these people had a faithful and untiring advocate in Pope Francis and they now have one in Pope Leo, both tireless champions of these brothers and sisters of ours who, too often, are treated as invaders instead of as desperate asylum-seekers. They are being treated this way all over the developed world and, to our shame, right here in our own nation as we seal off our borders, create a climate of fear, and look for ways to profile, exclude, and even to eradicate. This is a betrayal not only of American values but a betrayal of the Gospel.

        Today the Church around the world approaches the end of the Jubilee Year 2025. Last year at this time Pope Francis formally opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, marking the beginning of the Jubilee whose theme was “Pilgrims of Hope.” In many different ways – we, and I include the large group of Cathedral parishioners who had the joy of going to Rome – in many different ways we have walked the journey of hope along with fellow believers on every continent and every country -  people in tiny villages and great cities, in simple churches and splendid ones: an endless procession of pilgrims, proving that we are not alone on the journey of faith – any more than the Holy Family was - and witnessing to our belief that this journey of faith and hope is not only transforming us but, through us, transforming our world and leading us to the Kingdom!

        When he launched the Jubilee, Pope Francis expressed his hope that the year would help us recover (and here I quote), “a sense of universal fraternity, and refuse to turn a blind eye to the tragedy of rampant poverty that prevents millions of men, women, young people, and children from living in a manner worthy of their human dignity.”

        A lofty hope, for sure, but has it been realized? It’s hard to see where. None of the agonizing problems that Pope Francis highlighted - and that Pope Leo regularly reinforces - none has been solved, that’s for sure. But, my friends, I hope that we have had our eyes and our hearts opened in ways they weren’t before, and that we have grown in our awareness that this journey of faith is more than a solitary one we walk with Jesus, but a great and sometimes messy procession involving the whole human family, embracing everyone, excluding no one.

       My friends in Christ, the Jubilee of Hope ends soon, but not our pilgrimage of hope. The pilgrimage continues, and guiding us along the way is the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. They know the way and they are on the way with us. As we move now to the altar to celebrate the Eucharist, never are we more united as a family, and never are we more challenged to be – not just a family, but a caring family, a loving family, a compassionate family, a welcoming family, a holy family!

Father Michael G. Ryan