Sunday December 28, 2025

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We can honor and revere our parents by respecting their personhood even while refusing to cooperate with their sins.

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Good News Reflection for:

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
December 28, 2025

Today’s Prayer:

Your plans and your timing, my Lord, are perfect. Help me to believe in You beyond my understanding and my opinion of events. Amen.

IMPROVE YOUR DAY!
Powerful Catholic prayers are available on our YouTube channel.

Today’s Readings:

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14
Psalm 128:1-5
Colossians 3:12-21
Matthew 2:13-15,19-23
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122825.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-december-28-2025

How to have holy families

The scriptures for this Feast Day instruct us on how to have holy families. The reading from Sirach tells children (young and old) to “honor” and “revere” their parents, to be considerate of them when they get old and feeble and to be kind to them even if they fail to love us well. It does not say that we have to obey our parents all the time. This scripture never uses the word “obey”.

We are to only obey God, and if a parent instructs us to do what God wants us to do (as in the responsorial Psalm), then by obeying Mom or Dad, we’re obeying God, but if a parent disobeys God, we are not to follow him or her into sin. We can honor and revere our parents by respecting their personhood even while refusing to cooperate with their sins.

The reading from Colossians instructs us to “put on love, the bond of perfection”, and to make sure that the peace of Christ controls our hearts. How? Saint Francis de Sales put it this way: “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”

Verse 18 is not saying that wives should do this by obeying their husbands as if in a child-father relationship. To understand this scripture, replace the word “subordinate” or “submit” with “accept his loving protection”. God has put the husband in charge of providing protection for the family (which is why in the Gospel reading it’s Joseph, not Mary, who was given the dream). This includes spiritual protection, teaching holiness and leading the family to heaven. In other words: The husband is in charge of providing God’s radical love to the family.

Notice that the husband is commanded to love his wife. Why isn’t the wife told to love her husband? Because by nature she’s a nurturer and a care-giver. But the man, created to protect, is by nature a warrior. To be holy, the husband overcomes his innate urge to protect himself so that he can make loving sacrifices to protect his family — just like Jesus.

When a wife submits herself to the protection of her husband, if he is being the man whom God created him to be, she is placing herself into God’s protection. And the husband is giving her Christ’s radical love.

Questions for Personal Reflection:
Which of your family relationships needs to become holier? What can you do this week to improve these by (choose the ones that apply) honoring your parents, teaching your children about the faith, or loving your spouse (or ex-spouse) the way Christ loves?

Questions for Community Faith Sharing:
Husbands (and ex-husbands and widowers), explain how it feels to be a protector. Wives (and ex-wives and widows), share how submission to the husband’s protective nature nurtures the marriage. How is this similarly played out in a priest’s relationship with his parish?

Reflect further about this issue with our WordByte: “The Vocation of Marriage is Radical Love” @ https://wordbytes.org/marriage-and-family/the-vocation-of-marriage-is-radical-love/

© by Terry A. Modica, Good News Ministries

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