Ecclesiasticus 3:2-6, 12-14 / Colossians 3:12-21 / Luke 2:41-52
No matter where we go to, or how far we go, at the end of the day, we will always go back to where we came from.
This place where we will always go back to is where we call home.
We may go overseas for holiday, and we are impressed by how nice and good that place is.
But our hearts will still think of home, and long to go back home.
Yes, home is where the heart is, home is where the family is, home is where there is love.
So, at home, and in the family, there should be love, there must be love.
But as it is, no home is perfect, and no family is perfect.
But despite the imperfections and even dysfunctions, we still go back home and back to our family.
Because we believe that there can be love, and that there will be love.
And that is the hope for our home, that is the hope for our family, and it is with that hope that we keep going back.
Today's Gospel passage recalls that occasion when there was tension in the Holy Family.
Jesus went with Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover.
After the feast, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without His parents knowing it.
Mary and Joseph searched for Jesus for three days, and they finally found Him in the Temple.
Mary expressed the tension of the situation when she said: My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been looking for you.
And they did not understand what Jesus meant by being busy with His Father's affairs.
So, even for the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, love is not a given, and they too faced trials and tensions.
But they believed that there can be love, and that there will be love.
And that is also what the Holy Family is telling us about our family.
That in our family trials and tensions, there can be love and there will be love, and it is love that will keep our family together.
There is a story of a particular cold and hard winter, and a family of porcupines came together to keep warm.
But as they huddled together, their spikes poked at each other.
After some painful contact, they decided to stay away from each other.
But because the winter was cold and hard, they had to come back together to keep warm.
They accepted that they have to bear with the painful moments in order to keep warm and alive.
Yes, it is the warmth of love that keeps our family together, and that love will overcome the trials and the tensions of family life.
God wants to bless our families just as He blessed the Holy Family.
And just as Jesus lived under the authority of Mary and Joseph, parents have a spiritual authority over their children.
And parents express that authority by blessing their children with Holy Water, to invoke God's protection and guidance for their children.
And we the Church, the family of God, must also invoke God's blessings on this feast of the Holy Family.
May Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pray for us and our families, that there will be love, and that parents and children will be God’s blessing for one another.
And may we, the family of God, also be a blessing for the world.