Father Randy Koenigsknecht
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What Makes the Holy Family Holy
In this reflection, Father Chas invites us to look beyond perfection and rediscover what truly makes a family holy. Drawing from the example of the Holy Family, he emphasizes that holiness comes from intentionally welcoming God into the heart of family life.
Father Chas reminds us that God is not distant from our imperfections but is drawn to them. By recognizing our need for growth and inviting God into our daily lives, families can be transformed and grow together in holiness.
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And so as we begin our reflection today, I have a fun question for all of you, and that is: what makes the Holy Family holy?
Now the obvious answer might be, well, it is the people that make it up. They are holy. And I mean, you are not wrong. You cannot really get much better than Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Like number one all-star picks right there. They are like the Dodgers of families. You are not going to beat them.
But our families are also called to be holy. And so I propose that it is not actually the members of the family that make them holy. It is rather the individual members of the family who are inviting God to be at the center of their lives. That is what makes us holy.
Not that we can out-duel Mary and Joseph and Jesus, but we can invite God to be at the heart of our family like they did, like Jesus would have experienced throughout all of his life—learning and growing in faith.
And so a family united around God, where he is involved in all the various parts of their family life, where God is welcomed, where he walks with them and talks with them.
We can often treat God kind of like a kindly uncle. We talk about him every now and again, and maybe he comes over every so often.
But we are looking for something more—that God is an actual member of our family, someone who we talk about and someone who we talk to.
Through baptism, God invites us to be members of his family. And so we are called to likewise welcome him into our families.
And as we learn to do that over time, we are changed. Our families not only become holy, but the individual members who make them up are transformed.
And that is how all of us, all of our families, can be holy alongside the one Holy Family.
So what does that look like concretely?
I believe it starts when we realize that God is not afraid of the messiness in our lives, the messiness that we sometimes have in our families. We have to make peace with the fact that our families will never be perfect simply because we belong in them.
And last time I checked, I am not perfect yet. I still sin. I still fail to love my family as I ought.
But rather than seeing that as something that causes God to draw away from us or to draw back from our families, we remember that this is precisely what draws him to us. Jesus came to call not the righteous, but sinners.
And that means that as long as we are willing to recognize that our families are not perfect, that we could be more holy and more devout, God comes close.
It is only when we say, “I think we have it figured out. I think we are doing pretty good,” that we stop growing. That is the only obstacle we can put up.
And so the first step in growing and becoming holy families is simply inviting God in—bringing to him all the ways that your family is not perfect and asking him to help.
Ask for that next step. What does it look like for us to grow closer to you as a family? What can we do?