Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, is the feast of the Holy Family. Mass reading: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; Colossians 3:12-21 or 3:12-17; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23.

Over the Christmas Octave, the Church bids us to celebrate the Holy Family. 

All through the readings for the feast-day Mass, we are instructed on the basic form and structure of the family. 

• God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons (Sirach 3:2). 
• May your wife be like a fruitful vine, in the recesses of your home; your children like olive plants, around your table (Psalm 128:3). 
• Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, so that they may not become discouraged (Colossians 3:20-21). 

The Gospel also highlights the primacy of vocation over career. When commanded to flee to Egypt, Joseph left immediately; his vocation as husband and father was paramount. 

Yet marriage and family are in crisis today. Consider that most children born today are no longer born into the stable and lasting family units they justly deserve, with a father and mother committed to each other.

What are we to do? We must teach what the Lord does and resist worldly tendencies at variance with it. These main elements are:

•  There is no legitimate use of the marital act outside of marriage, ever. 
• Children deserve and have the right to expect two parents, a father and a mother, committed to each other till death do them part. Anything short of this is a grave injustice to children and a mortal sin before God. To intentionally subject children to any other familial scenario for the sake of political correctness or for the perceived needs of adults harms children.
•  Married couples must learn to work out their differences as divorce offends God (see Malachi 2:16).
•  The needs of children far outweigh the preferences and needs of adults. 

Preach the undiluted God’s plan for sexuality, marriage and family to your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

God has a beautiful plan for the domestic church, and we must live it and teach it.