Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Today we look to the family of Nazareth: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. About their years together the Gospels say very little, and that little is all movement and fear. Matthew tells how, after the visit of the Magi, an angel warned Joseph to flee to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill the child, and how they stayed there until the king died. Luke tells of the circumcision according to the Law, and then of the twelve-year-old Jesus lost in the Temple and found three days later. Then a single sentence covers twenty years: he went back to Nazareth and was obedient to them. That is probably why the feast came so late — Leo XIII established it at the end of the 1800s, and Benedict XV extended it to the whole Church in 1921 — and why it became so popular: little is known about that family, and that little looks like what happens to everyone. A forced move, a living to rebuild somewhere else, a son lost for three days and the fear that comes with it. The feast is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas; when Christmas falls on a Sunday, on December 30. It is the day when, in many parishes, families are blessed and wedding anniversaries are remembered.