Christmas blessings to you and your family! We hope this reflection will encourage and inspire you. If you have enjoyed following these reflections, please consider contributing your own reflection to our Lenten series!
The Sunday that follows Christmas is celebrated as a feast to honor the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.This feast comes at a time of year when we are naturally thinking about our families. During the Christmas holiday season, we might be merrily enjoying each other’s company, reliving our favorite traditions, or getting on one another’s last nerves - or, the most likely scenario, some combination of all three.
In any case, we might also use this time to reflect more deeply on what it means to be a family united by faith, and how our faith can strengthen us to care for our families more lovingly. This Sunday’s readings provide plenty of inspiration. We hear the story of the day to day life of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in Nazareth. We hear encouragement in the advice of Sirach: “He stores up riches who reveres his mother … Whoever reveres his father will live a long life.” We hear inspiration in the exhortation of Paul: Put on … heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.” The reverence for one another that Sirach encourages and the spiritual gifts that Paul names are essential for harmony in the home. While at times it can be quite challenging to treat one another with compassion, humility, and reverence, at many times the love we feel for our families makes forgiveness and understanding second nature.
In reflecting on these readings, I feel the true challenge lies in extending these graces to those outside our family and in changing the way we define what it means to be a family. How to we extend compassion and reverence to strangers in our communities? As a Fordham community, how do we welcome newcomers into our “Ramily?” We have many opportunities to do this, from offering international classmates a meal for Thanksgiving to explaining Fordham traditions to new coworkers, from sharing a swipe at the caf to becoming acquainted with our off-campus neighbors here in the Bronx.
We can extend our care and compassion even farther. Each year, the Catholic bishops in the U.S. sponsor a National Migration Week around the time of the Feast of the Holy Family. It takes its inspiration from the Holy Family’s journey to Egypt to escape Herod’s persecution. National Migration week provides an opportunity to learn about and to advocate for the many families today who find themselves in the Holy Family’s shoes, leaving their homes to escape persecution or find stability. To learn more about National Migration Week, including how you can pray for and support migrant families, visit the home page.
May you and your families, near and far, be blessed with spiritual graces and great joy this Feast of the Holy Family!
Katie Anderson Kuo
Asst. Director of Campus Ministry for Liturgy
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