Today in this temple, we have found Jesus, and He is in the Holy Eucharist.

Merry Christmas! Yes, we are or still should be, celebrating Christmas. The celebration of Christmas ends with the Baptism of the Lord. Today, within the Octave of Christmas, eight days of solemn celebration, we celebrate family; and the Holy family in particular. The Holy family is the model and image of what our families should strive to be. Now before you begin thinking that this is unreasonable, impracticable or impossible, let us take a closer look at the Holy Family.
In the thirty hidden years of Nazareth we discover that the Holy Family was in a sense an Ordinary family. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The Holy Family even had turmoil, as seen in the flight to Egypt, and when Joseph and Mary “lost” Jesus for three days.
Mary, even though the Mother of God, lived her life as a traditional Jewish homemaker providing for the needs of her family. She was submissive to her husband. She sacrificed and made her house a home.
Joseph was an ordinary skilled labor who provided for his family. Jesus was known as the son of this carpenter. Most importantly, he was the spiritual head of the family, as he held and cradled Jesus the son of God in His arms (this is a hint to the relationship all fathers should have to Jesus). And Joseph loved his wife as he loved his own body, and so lived a manly life of chastity.
Jesus lived like any other inhabitant of Nazareth, working the same trade as St. Joseph and earning his living by the sweat of his brow. Speaking of Jesus’ life at Nazareth the Gospel sums it up by saying, He was obedient to Joseph and Mary. Even though He was God, Jesus lived as an obedient child, obedient to the fourth Commandment, to honor thy Father and Mother, thus showing his love for his parents on earth. Jesus has given the perfect example of how all children should treat their parents; and of how all spiritual children should treat their spiritual fathers in Christ.
So even though have lived an ordinary life, what are the great secrets of the Holy Families’ hidden life at Nazareth.
First, is the secret of its silence. Nazareth was a place of peaceful rest from the noise of the outside world. It was a womb so to speak, where the members of the family could grow in love for one another and in love for God. Our families should be the same; they should be a place of peace, of place of respite from the noise and clamor of the outside world that is always trying to distract our attention from the things that really matter—love of God and love of family.
In this, we discover that Nazareth was the perfect place for the rearing of Children. Nazareth as we have said is the perfect model of what family life should be. Mary and Joseph loved another, they always deferred to one another out of loved, putting the needs of the other before their own. It was a mutual submissiveness for the good of the family.
The family should be a community of true love and sharing, a place for perfecting all of the human virtues such as patience, kindness, responsibility, magnanimity, honesty, and trust to name but a few. This is the basic holy and enduring function of family in society. The family is the seedbed of the virtues because it is in the family that they can grow the most. However, this doesn’t mean it’s easy to practice the virtues in the family. In fact, as we all know, the family is where it is actually the hardest to practice the virtues; it takes tremendous effort, self-control and self-denial. But remember, where it is the hardest to practice the virtues, that is where they can grow the most.
And finally, the Holy Family’s secret was that it was centered not just around the life of a child and the activities of the child, but around and on the life of the child who was God-Jesus. Mary and Joseph loved Jesus more than anything, and so they loved God more than anything. Their love for one another had its very source in Jesus. The source of the love between the members of our families must be, must be, Jesus as well. And so the Holy Family was a family of prayer, a family that drew its life blood from Jesus.
Our families as well, need to love Jesus more than anything, and so love God more than anything; family prayer must be at the heart of our family life, especially the most perfect of all prayers--the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This obedience and love of Jesus must be lived out in obedience and love for the Church He founded and those spiritual fathers Jesus has placed to lead her, the Holy Father, bishops and priest. A family cannot love Jesus without loving His body, the Church.
If our families have “lost” Jesus, today’s gospel tells the parent to go look for Him. The gospel tell them, "You will find Him in the temple." Families today who have “lost” Jesus are those who don’t pray together who don’t look for Him in the temple by attending weekly Mass together, who don’t attend the sacrament of Confession regularly and who don’t come into the Church to adore Jesus present in his human physical body in the Holy Eucharist when ever possible.
This last point is the most important. To live a truly authentic Catholic Christian family life in the world today, really does take superhuman strength. It is the Eucharist, and only the Eucharist that provides this Superhuman/Supernatural strength to families.
In order to live like the Holy Family we have to have couples that do more than just get married. We need married couples to live out their marriage as believing and practicing Catholics. Living a Christian marriage and raising a Christian family goes so much, infinitely much, beyond non-Christian marriage and family life. This is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist to give those who believe in Him the power they need to remain alive in His grace. For married Catholics and their families this means the light and strength they must constantly receive if they are to live out the sublime directives of the Holy Spirit for Christian believers, and live in imitation of the Holy Family. The Holy Eucharist is exactly how we keep Jesus the center and the focus of our family life.
Today in this temple, we have found Jesus, and He is in the Holy Eucharist. And so, the Holy Eucharist is absolutely, vitally necessary for Catholic families to remain united in a world of selfish instability, because the Holy Eucharist is God among us; it is Jesus. And so a living faith in (that is a faith that is practiced) the Holy Eucharist is the way, the only way to imitate the Holy Family and keep Jesus at the very center of our family life. This was the Message of Our Lady at Fatima (which is more relevant today than ever). And this why the Angel appear to the Children, teaching them the prayers of adoration; to teach the family through the children that they must adore God in and through the Holy Eucharist in faith, hope and love.
And, this is exactly why I have started children and family adoration on Sunday nights at 6:30pm. Because, how vitally necessary it is for our parishes to provide this most privilege time, the most privilege time we have on this earth, for families to be able to come together on the Lord's day, outside of Mass, and actually and literally be in the presence of the Child Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, adoring Him in love and asking Him for what they need to be holy and so happy families. This interactive Holy Hour teaches our children and our families Who it is they receive, in the Holy Eucharist, by teaching them how to adore this same Jesus truly present there. Come families, you have the opportunity, the rest is up to you.
Come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord! Let us ask, the entire Holy Family to help us imitate their love and their holiness. Jesus, Mary and Joseph we love you. Jesus, Mary and Joseph help our families to be holy families like your own. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, save our families, save souls. Amen.