It is interesting that for the wider world Christmas is all about family. Yet, for Catholics, there is a separate feast for the family in the Sunday after the Nativity of the Lord - the Feast of the Holy Family. I think that there is wisdom in this. Christ, Second Person of the Holy Trinity, precedes his earthly family, yet, born in time to the Virgin, he belongs, as all human beings do, to a family. He also unites, through the Cross, the human family so the distinctions and hostilities that divide us and originate from the chaos of Babel are done away with. It is in his flesh that we find harmony, peace and unity. These are all characteristics of the Holy Family in which Jesus grew to manhood in Nazareth. However, families, as we already know, do not possess peace. It must be founded on Christ. It is through God's grace that we can find the kind of family life for which we all long. Let us, therefore, pray that we can have some of that peace in our hearts and families this Christmas so that they will be the domestic church that testifies to the greatness of God's love in Christ Jesus.
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