Scripture readings for Dec. 28, 2025, Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Sir 3:2-6, 12-14 Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 Col 3:12-21 OR 3:12-17 Mt 2:13-15, 19-23
Always on the Sunday after Christmas we keep the feast of the Holy Family. In this feast, the church, I think, simply wants our Christmas adoration, our meditation, to linger.
The church wants simply to hold us there, to keep us, in mind and heart, close to the newborn Christ and to his Blessed Mother, to Joseph too.
Each year I celebrate the feast of the Holy Family in an Ignatian sort of way, gently meditating on the intimate Christmas scene of Mary, Joseph and the infant Christ, contemplating it all, as it says in the Spiritual Exercises, “just as if I were there, with all possible respect and reverence.”
What I mean is that the feast of the Holy Family is a feast of meditation. Not rushing on, not quitting Christmas too soon, the feast of the Holy Family draws our attention again and perhaps more deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation, into the beauty and truth of Christ’s advent and birth.
But what is the object of our meditation? It is, of course, the living and present mystery of the incarnate Christ presented to the world liturgically in the word of God and in the Eucharist. Our prayer, our worship, our willingness to listen to the Scripture: all of it together draws us into the mystery of Christ.
That’s why going to Mass, praying your rosary, reading the Bible and more, are all important, because these things act upon the soul in concert; they conspire to show us the real Christ who comes to us only in mystery.
And so, looking at the Scripture, particularly at these excerpts from Matthew, what do we see? We see that this Christ whom we learned in Matthew 1 is the descendent of both Abraham and David, also miraculously the son of Mary and adoptively the son of Joseph, is also part of an even larger story. That is, we learn that what’s important is not merely from whom Jesus is descended, what matters even more is the saving drama God has begun in this Christ, the future and not merely the past.
Yes, Jesus is descended from patriarchs and kings, but now magi from the East come to worship him. That is, through Jesus all Gentiles, all the nations, will be drawn to God, fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham (Gn 15:5).
Yes, the story of Moses echoes throughout. Preserved from mass massacre, like Moses, Jesus too will save his people through the water, the waters of Baptism now, your baptism and mine.
These connections between Moses and Jesus illumine God’s constancy, the fact that he has always worked to save his people — from Egypt, from sin. By evoking God’s saving works from the past, Matthew underlines God’s saving works in the present, that is among the Gentiles. Which suggests God’s saving work remains ongoing. That is, Christmas is not a past thing.
But back to the Holy Family. All this talk about Moses and Gentiles and salvation history should not tempt us to forget salvation’s intimate beginning in the womb of the Virgin, in the small cloister of the crèche, and in the littleness of a family. And here we come to what I call the reflected truth of this feast, that is, truth reflected from the Holy Family upon us, revealing a truth about our families — the truth that they are holy too.
The idea is simple. God saw fit to save us all by means of a mission that included the goodness and sanctuary of the family. Mary conceived her divine Son, cared for him in utero and as a babe in her arms. Joseph cared for Mary and her Son; he protected them and provided for them.
And what does this mean but that the Holy Family reveals the purpose of the family as such, all families? That is, we learn in this feast that the family is meant to be a sanctuary of love meant to foster life. And more, we learn that life, born and raised within the family, may also become life in Christ. If, that is, we seek to allow the grace of God to make our families holy families too.
Which brings us back to why I called this feast a feast of meditation. For maybe that’s why the church wants us to continue a few days longer to meditate on the beauty of Christmas, so that we might begin to practice the virtues we contemplate, the lowliness of the blessed and the dutifulness of St. Joseph, and then to see Christ born again. This time in our own homes.
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books.
