Holy family, Holy choices (Matthew 2:13-23)

 

“The choice to love is the choice to protect what is vulnerable.” - Henri Nouwen

When it comes to the holy life of God with us, Emmanuel, Jesus, it is always a matter of life and death: the child’s, each other’s, and our own. From the very beginning, God entrusts His Son to human hands. Not to angels. Not to kings. But to a family, fragile, ordinary, and faithful.

On this Holy Family Sunday, we see clearly that Joseph stands between Jesus and Herod, between life and death, between the life giver and the life taker. And so do we. There is no neutral ground. No one gets to ride the fence. Day by day, minute by minute, we choose. Will we protect life or endanger it? Will we nurture what is holy or neglect it? Will we wake up to God’s presence or sleep through it?

Joseph’s holiness begins with waking up. Again and again, he awakens to God’s voice in a dream, and he acts. Before Jesus was born, Joseph had already faced a life and death decision. He planned to quietly dismiss Mary. But an awakening revealed that God was doing something far greater than Joseph could understand. Joseph trusted, and because he did, life was protected and God’s promise continued.

What is striking is that Mary, the Mother of God, listens. She who first received the Word through the Spirit now entrusts herself and her Child to Joseph’s obedience. She follows him into uncertainty, exile, and danger. This is profound cooperation with the Spirit of God. Mary’s holiness is found not only in giving birth to Christ, but in trusting the way God chooses to protect that life through Joseph.

And Jesus, fully divine and fully human, places Himself completely in their care. He allows Himself to be carried, hidden, fed, and protected. The salvation of the world unfolds through shared obedience: the Spirit speaks, Joseph rises, Mary trusts, and the Child lives. God’s Spirit works through the family.

The Holy Family shows us that holiness is about listening to God and to one another. It is about choosing courage and taking responsibility for what God places in our care. God does the same with us. In countless ways, through relationships, children, work, callings, wounds, and hopes, God says:

“Here. This is holy. This is fragile. This is mine. I trust it to you. You are Joseph.”

Every family, every person, is entrusted with sacred life. And every family lives in a world of Herods, forces that threaten, distract, diminish, or destroy. Holy Family Sunday asks us a simple but demanding question: How will we care for and protect the life of Christ entrusted to us?

We do it the way the Holy Family did, by listening, by choosing again and again to take the child and his mother, and by trusting that even in uncertainty the Spirit of God is present and at work. When we do, our families, however imperfect, become holy ground where Christ is sheltered, nurtured, and sent into the world.

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM

Joseph: A Justice Shaped from Within(Matthew 1:18-24)

Matthew’s Gospel places before us a quiet but revolutionary figure: Joseph, called a just man. At first glance, his justice feels puzzling. Joseph knows the Law. As a faithful Jewish man, he understands clearly what the Law prescribes for a woman found to be with child outside of marriage. Yet when faced with Mary’s mysterious pregnancy, he chooses a path that steps beyond legal righteousness. Instead of exposing her, he resolves to protect her dignity. How, then, can a lawbreaker be called just? Joseph’s justice is rooted in deep communion. His righteousness flows from a heart attuned to God. Justice, for him, is not about enforcing rules but about safeguarding relationship. He allows love to interpret the Law, not the other way around.

As Richard Rohr reminds us, “The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty.”

Joseph does not cling to certainty. He does not resolve the mystery too quickly. Instead, he remains open- open enough for God to enter. Betrothal in Jewish culture was not casual-it was already covenant. Joseph is already Mary’s husband in all but shared life. Yet what truly defines his bond with her is his union with God. Joseph listens inwardly. He discerns. He trusts a dream-an interior movement of the Spirit-over public opinion and legal certainty. His obedience is contemplative. He responds to the subtle whisper within, and that response draws him into deeper union with Christ.

Joseph’s obedience, then, is an interior response. He walks a path where contradictions remain unresolved, where fear and trust coexist, where certainty gives way to surrender. This is a nondual faith- one that allows God alone to hold together what the human mind cannot reconcile. And in that allowing, Joseph’s life opens into greater union with Christ.

And perhaps this is the heart of the Gospel: the only thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separate from God. God draws near by becoming one with us, entering our inner dialogue of accusation and defence. God takes our side, turning mistakes into grace. When we are tempted toward shame or self-rejection, God does not add another voice of condemnation. God remains present. On the inner journey, we meet a God who interacts with our deepest selves-a God who grows the person, allows the struggle, forgives the misstep. It is this ongoing give-and-take that makes God real, not as an idea, but as a Lover. Like Joseph, we are invited to trust that presence and to let our lives be shaped from within by the God who is already with us.

 - Lilly Pushpam PBVM

Waiting for the Christ we did not imagine (Matthew 11:2-11)

 

God is the One who shatters our images of God. - Pseudo Dionysius

There are moments in life when the images of God we held, the expectations we clung to, the certainties we carried fall apart in our hands. And perhaps that is the beginning of real faith.  as we are in the season of Advent, a season of waiting, longing, and holy expectation, this truth feels particularly sharp. That is exactly where John the Baptist stands today. The fierce prophet of last week’s Gospel-confident, wild, certain-is now sitting behind cold prison walls, holding a question that cracks open his heart: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?” And if we are honest, we know that place well.

 Most of us carry a gap between our hopes for and expectations of who Jesus is and what he does, and who he really is and what he really does. It’s a gap between the Messiah we imagine and the Jesus who actually shows up. A gap between the God we want and the God who comes to us in ways we did not ask for, did not expect, and sometimes do not like. This gap becomes painfully real when life breaks our heart, when injustice wins the day, when our prayers feel like they evaporate before they reach heaven. The gap fills with disappointment, fear, grief, confusion, and anger. And like John, we feel trapped inside a prison cell of unmet expectations. When have you felt that gap tearing at your faith? What happened? What did it feel like?

Whenever we expect Jesus to display power like a classic hero strong, forceful, triumphant, he overturns our ideas. He reverses our assumptions. He reveals a kingdom we never imagined. John’s question “Are you the one?” - is not only about Jesus’ identity. It is also about what is happening inside John, and inside us. Behind his words we can almost hear the unspoken confession: “If you are the one who is to come, then you are nothing like what I imagined, nothing like what I hoped for.” What if that is  confession of John from the prison? And what if we allowed it to be ours too? And this is what Advent asks of us: to let go of the Christ we imagined so we can receive the Christ who actually comes. Haven’t there been moments when you weren’t sure who Jesus really is? Moments when he surprised you, disappointed you, or simply didn’t do what you hoped he would? We all know that experience-when our expectations collapse and our confidence thins.

But that confession, whether it’s John’s or ours, isn’t failure. It’s the beginning of reversal. It’s the moment our eyes start to see differently, our hearts begin to expand, and our hands become ready to reach beyond themselves. It keeps us open to the One who comes in ways we never imagined. This reversal doesn’t erase the gap but it transforms it. The gap becomes an invitation. to step forward in faith, to move the mountains before us.

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM

A Future Carved in the Wilderness (Matthew 3:1–12)

"The soul that seeks God must first pass through the desert of all things, stripped of consolation, of self-deception, of every support. It is painful, yet only there does the soul begin to awaken to truth and to the light of God’s love." - St. John of the Cross

The wilderness strips away noise, distractions, and the illusions we carefully arrange to keep our lives functioning on the surface. We avoid voices like that of  John the Baptist, the main figure whom we meditate upon during this second Sunday of Advent, the prophet who prepares the way, calling people to repentance. However, we have learned to survive in our own carefully managed systems. We settle, not because all is well, but because we are overwhelmed, tired, numb, disappointed, or afraid to imagine that life could be different. We know how to manage, cope, perform, and “play the game.” We become comfortably numb, drifting away from the one thing that truly matters.

But this voice from the wilderness, refuses to let us shrink. He bursts into our resignation not to condemn us, not to shame us, but to awaken us. And his call is precise: Repent. Not “change yourself.” Not “try harder.” Repent. Because change is about behaviour. Repentance is about the heart. Repentance is coming home to the person we were meant to be. It is reclaiming our integrity where we have betrayed ourselves. It is seeing the cracks we pretend not to notice -the contradictions, the heavy habits, the strained relationships, the smallness we live out of, the fears we avoid, the inner places we keep unchallenged. It’s not so much about guilt or innocence but about wholeness and fullness. It’s less about the past and where we’ve come from, and more about the future and where we’re headed.

That is why John’s message is urgent: “The axe is already laid at the root.”
Not tomorrow. Not when you are ready, NOW. And yet, in all this John stands with astonishing humility. After shaking nations with his boldness, he whispers: “I am not worthy.” The prophet who speaks with thunder bows his head like a child. His humility shows that repentance is not about proving our goodness but opening ourselves to God’s goodness. Advent is the season when the wilderness becomes a birthplace. When truth, even painful truth, becomes a doorway to possibility.

What is one change you could make today-or at least begin-that would bring more wholeness and fullness to your life? Because God’s future begins with something as small as repentance-not because we are bad, but because we are worth it.

 - Lilly Pushpam PBVM