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
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