Find Holiness in Simple Living | A Virtual Pilgrimage for Advent & Christmas: Christmas Octave Day 4

On a day of dual feasts — the Feasts of the Holy Family and the Holy Innocents — Fr. Michael reflects on how even the Holy Family experienced the ordinary ups and downs of daily life. They were happy and sad, euphoric and down-trodden, just like us — and in that ordinariness is holiness.

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Transcript

We find ourselves in the heart of Christmas — the lights still shining, carols still echoing — and yet today’s Gospel speaks of flight, fear, and grief.

Two feasts overlap:
The Feast of the Holy Family and The Feast of the Holy Innocents.
Though the Holy Family takes precedence, both belong together, for love and sorrow, joy and loss are woven into every family’s story — even theirs.

This week we’ll hear from two more gifted storytellers: Rachel Forton and Fr Keith Romke. Both share with us very intimate personal memories of Christmases past.  Rachel paints a vivid portrait of life as a young mother at Christmas. She helps us better appreciate what Mary and Joseph lived in those early years with baby Jesus. Fr Keith opens his heart and shares some of his own struggles to help us open our hearts to receive the love Jesus has given us. 

Rachel and Fr Keith remind us that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived the same joys and heartaches we do. Their holiness was not immunity from suffering but fidelity through it.

St. Matthew tells us that sometime after Jesus’ birth, the magi arrived in Bethlehem. Herod, fearful of a rival king, erupted in jealous rage, ordering the slaughter of all boys two years old and under. Warned by an angel, Joseph rose in the night, gathered Mary and the Child, and fled to Egypt — a dangerous journey that may have taken weeks.

In 1952, Pope Pius XII called the Holy Family “the archetype of every refugee family,”   He wrote:

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king, are for all times and places the models and protectors of every migrant and refugee.”

Today the world again groans with exile. The United Nations estimates that over 120 million people are displaced — more than at any time since World War II.

Pope Francis said on this feast:

“Joseph, Mary and Jesus experienced the tragic fate of refugees, marked by fear, uncertainty, and unease. Millions of families today can identify with this sad reality.”

Reflecting on that truth, I wrote this first poem.

A Prayer for Christmas Peace

Herod’s swordsmen still ravage the land.
The blood of young innocents
drips deep red in a sea of sorrow.
Rachel’s wail still haunts the hills;
she cries for her children —
she will not be comforted.

O Child of Hope,
snatched from Satan’s hand at midnight,
You entered our world unprotected,
faced the terror of Your times —
outcast, refugee, one scurrying for life.
Not snuggled in blankets,
not in a palace of protection,
but born into our world as it is.

O Little Child, come lead us.
When, like Joseph, we are awakened at midnight and told to flee,
teach us deeper trust, holier hope —
a more Christ-filled Christmas.
For only in Your will is our peace.

We don’t know how long the family remained in Egypt, at most a couple years — perhaps settling in Alexandria, where Joseph could find work. When Herod died around 4 B.C., they returned to Nazareth, and the child still a toddler grew “in wisdom and age and grace before God and men.”

When I imagine the Holy Family returning home — weary, grateful, and ready to begin again — one image always stops me in my tracks:  

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s The Holy Family with Little Bird.
I was blessed to see the original at the Prado Museum in Madrid.

Murillo, a 17th-century Spanish Baroque artist, had a gift for blending the sacred and the familiar — showing holiness in the warmth of everyday life.

In this painting, Mary pauses her spinning to watch her toddler son. Joseph steadies the boy lovingly as the child Jesus teases the family dog, holding high a tiny bird.  Did you ever imagine Jesus having a pet puppy or a little song bird? I must admit I never did until I saw Murillo’s painting. It’s a scene of laughter and gentle delight. No halos, no angels — just love.

Murillo reminds us that holiness hides in the simple, ordinary moments: in shared work, small joys, quiet affection. The extraordinary lives within the ordinary.

Meditation on Murillo’s The Holy Family with Little Bird

Years have passed since that cold cave —
straw beds, sleepy shepherds, barnyard beasts.
There is warmth, soft blankets, and animal friends.

Time to play, time to rest, together for a while —
the pleasure of leisure, watching God grow up.
A holy family is love made real.

The father’s hammer rests; he delights in his son.
The mother smiles, pausing her daily spinning —
mothering without smothering.

We almost hear a Savior’s laughter,
teasing, taunting, prey held high,
a puppy begging for a bit of bird.

Something within me awakens.
Year after year I return to this family
to remember what I forget:

Life is more than work.
Love is not a burden to be borne.
Simple joys in simple living
strip away the years.

Holy, holy, holy family —
no halos, no angel choirs, no heavenly lights —
the extraordinary ordinary of the holy.

Yes… the extraordinary ordinary of the holy.