Today at Mass on this Christmas Sunday we ask for the intercession of the Holy Family. The opening prayer is this:

The prayer addresses two facets of the Holy Family: First, that the family is God’s example to us to imitate in our own families, and Second, that our family actually helps get us to heaven.

Let’s talk about each of these in turn. God grant that we may imitate the example of the Holy Family. It is interesting that when God decided the time was right to become take on humanity, when Jesus took on flesh and came as our Savior, he chose to do so in a family. He didn’t simply show up out of the desert one day. He didn’t create his body from nothing. He chose to gain the cooperation of a mother and a father and to come as their child. He obeyed his mom. It seems to me that, whatever role you play in a family, God is at work in that situation.

We are all somebody’s baby. To be a child growing up is to learn to be humble, to ask for help from parents, to learn to love even when we are upset with each other. As our parents grow older, children learn what it is to have gratitude and to have a chance to take their parents into their homes and care for them. If you are a father, you learn what it means to love another being unconditionally, you may struggle with the demands of fatherhood and learn patience and responsibility. If you are a mother, you may learn what it means to love another human being far more than you would ever love yourself. Long nights with crying babies, long days running errands and thinking of the needs of children before your own.

All of these roles in which we find ourselves within the family are imitations of the Holy Family. As we grow into them, we find that the family is completely irreplaceable as a source of virtue. We are better people with our family. Friends are easy, we get to choose people we like. We don’t choose who we are related to, so we must be patient with the uncle who wants to argue politics at Thanksgiving, we must resist the urge to give up on the troublesome teenager, we must deal lovingly and patiently with those around us. Love is not based on affinity, not based on who we happen to like. Love is a virtue that embraces even those who annoy us, reaches out even to our enemies. The family is a school of virtue because it makes us learn how to love, as the prayer says, these are the bonds of charity. This is why Our Lord came to a family. He sanctifies it. He saves his mother and father.

In this way, we come to the second and more shocking part of the prayer, by practicing love within our family, we are brought from the human household into: “the joy of [God’s] house,” to “Delight one day in eternal rewards.” The human family is a type of God’s family, as St. John Paul says, the family is a Little Church. By practicing love right here and now, we are prepared for living in God’s family for eternity, and not only do we prepare but somehow the family itself is a part of our salvation. The Little Church for many of us is necessary. I know that I would be a much worse person without my parents and, for me at least, without being a parent.

God loves families. He loves children. He chooses to work in our families (in whatever form they happen to come in!) to save us and bring us to heaven. I pray that during the Christmas season when many of us are spending extra time with our loved ones that God will be at work in our homes. No matter what our family situation is in our homes, may he bless us and use us to bless others.