27 December 2026 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.” Matthew 2:14
Two days after Christmas the Church looks at the family in which the Son of God grew up. It was not an easy family life. Soon after the birth, the angel warns Joseph: “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt… for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” The Holy Family become refugees. Later they return and settle in Nazareth, where Jesus grows up in an ordinary home.
The readings draw a picture of the family according to God. In the beginning God created humankind in his image, “male and female he created them”, and blessed them. Sirach teaches children to honour father and mother: “Those who honour their father atone for sins… My child, help your father in his old age.” Paul describes a home led by Christ: mutual love, respect, obedience, and parents who do not provoke their children.
The Holy Family is not a picture of a perfect family without problems. It is a family that faced poverty, danger, exile, misunderstanding and grief, and stayed together in faith. Joseph protected; Mary pondered; Jesus obeyed and grew “in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.”
On this feast we pray for our families, especially those under strain: migrant families separated by work abroad, families with sick members, broken families, and refugees. The Holy Family knows their road.
Theme: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bless our family.”
The Holy Family in danger, exile and Nazareth; God's design for the family; honour for parents.
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.”” Genesis 1:27–28
“Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” Luke 2:51
Apply: Thank God together for each member of your family.
“Those who honor their father atone for sins, and those who respect their mother are like those who lay up treasure.” Sirach 3:3–4
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” Luke 2:52
Apply: Visit or call your elderly parents or grandparents.
“When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”” Exodus 2:10
“Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”” Matthew 2:13
Apply: Pray for migrant families and refugees.
Holiness grows in ordinary family life lived with God.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, protect our homes.
Take-home resolution: Begin or renew daily family prayer.
Dear brothers and sisters, two days after Christmas we look at the family in which Jesus grew up: the Holy Family of Nazareth.
It was not a comfortable family. Soon after Jesus was born, the angel told Joseph: “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt.” They became refugees in a foreign land. Later they came back and lived quietly in Nazareth, a small village, working with their hands.
The readings show God's plan for the family. In the beginning God created man and woman in his image and blessed them. Sirach tells children to honour their parents and care for them in old age. St Paul describes a home led by Christ: husbands and wives who love and respect one another, children who obey, parents who do not discourage their children.
The Holy Family was holy not because it had no problems, but because it faced its problems with God. Joseph protected, Mary pondered, Jesus obeyed and grew in wisdom. Many of our families today are stretched: a parent working abroad, a sick member, money worries, quarrels. The Holy Family knows that road.
So today let us bring our families to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Let us pray together at home, honour our parents, care for our elders, and forgive one another. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bless our families. Amen.
St Joseph never speaks a single word in the Gospels, yet he protects the Holy Family at every danger.
📖 Genesis 37:5–11
📖 Matthew 1:18–25
Apply: Spend five minutes in silence with God each day.
📖 Genesis 50:20–21
📖 Matthew 2:13–23
Apply: Fathers: bless your children tonight.
📖 Micah 6:8
📖 Matthew 1:19
Apply: Correct with gentleness, never with humiliation.
Joseph shows how to guard a family: with silence, obedience, work and tenderness.
Every family can ask St Joseph to be its protector.
Take-home resolution: Our family will consecrate itself to the protection of St Joseph this week.
Dear brothers and sisters, on this feast of the Holy Family let us look at the one member who never says a word in the Gospels: St Joseph. Mary speaks, Jesus speaks, angels speak, but Joseph only listens and acts.
Four times an angel speaks to Joseph in a dream, and four times he obeys at once: to take Mary as his wife, to flee to Egypt, to return to the land of Israel, and to settle in Nazareth (Matthew 1:20; 2:13, 19, 22). Each time the Gospel says simply that Joseph got up and did as he was told. In a world full of noise, Joseph teaches us to listen to God in silence and to act without delay.
Joseph was a protector. When Herod sought to kill the child, Joseph took the child and his mother by night and fled to Egypt (Matthew 2:14). Think of that journey: a refugee family, poor, in a foreign land, with a little baby. Joseph worked with his hands to feed them. Today many fathers work far from home, in the Gulf or abroad, to support their families. Joseph understands them.
The Gospel calls Joseph a just man (Matthew 1:19). When he discovered that Mary was with child, he did not want to expose her to public disgrace. His justice was full of mercy. In our families too, justice and tenderness must go together: correction without humiliation, firmness without harshness, forgiveness without weakness.
Fathers, look at Joseph: protect your families, work honestly, pray, bless your children. Mothers, look at Mary. Children, look at Jesus, who was obedient to His parents. And let every family here entrust itself to St Joseph, guardian of the Redeemer. May he who guarded the Holy Family guard ours too.
The Church calls the family a domestic church. What does that mean in practice?
📖 Deuteronomy 6:4–9
📖 Acts 16:31–34
Apply: Begin or renew daily family prayer.
📖 Sirach 3:1–14
📖 Colossians 3:18–21
Apply: Visit or call an elderly relative this week.
📖 Psalm 128
📖 Matthew 2:13–15
Apply: Eat at least one meal a day together without phones.
The family is where faith is first received, prayed and lived.
Nazareth is a school for every family.
Take-home resolution: Our family will pray together every evening and share one meal a day without phones.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Second Vatican Council gave the Christian family a beautiful name: the domestic church (Lumen Gentium 11). On the feast of the Holy Family, let us see what this means in practice.
A church is a place where God is worshipped, His Word is heard and love is lived. The home is meant to be exactly that. Parents are the first heralds of the faith for their children (CCC 1656). Long before catechism class, children learn from their parents how to make the sign of the cross, how to fold their hands, how to forgive. Moses told the Israelites to speak of God's words at home and on the road, when lying down and when rising (Deuteronomy 6:7).
The Fourth Commandment teaches children to honour their father and mother, with respect, gratitude, obedience while they are young, and care for them when they are old (CCC 2214–2220; Sirach 3:1–14). It also gives parents duties: to educate their children in faith, in prayer and in virtue, to respect their vocation, and to give the example of a good life (CCC 2221–2226). St Paul writes: fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart (Colossians 3:21).
Families today are under great pressure: work far from home, financial stress, screens that keep everyone apart in the same room, addiction, broken marriages. The Holy Family also knew danger, poverty and exile. They survived because God was at the centre. Let our families do the same: pray together every evening, even briefly; eat at least one meal a day together without phones; come to the Holy Qurbana together on Sunday; forgive before sleeping.
And let the parish be a family of families, supporting those who are struggling, single parents, widows, the elderly living alone. May Jesus, Mary and Joseph bless every family in this parish, and make our homes true domestic churches.
Children, Jesus had a family too: his mother Mary and St Joseph!
When Jesus was a baby, a bad king wanted to hurt him. So Joseph took Mary and Jesus far away to Egypt to keep them safe. Later they came home to Nazareth.
Our family is special too. Let's help at home and pray together. Say together: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bless my family!”
Lord Jesus, you grew up in the Holy Family of Nazareth, through exile, poverty and ordinary work. Bless our families: keep us united in love, faithful in prayer, and caring for the elderly and the young. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, protect our homes. Amen.
Two days after Christmas the Church looks at the home in which the Son of God grew up, and the readings build that home from the foundation upward. Genesis gives the foundation: man and woman together are the image of God, and they are blessed. Sirach gives the walls: honour between the generations. Colossians gives the daily rule: love, respect and gentleness “in the Lord”. Matthew then shows a real family living this under pressure: warned at night, driven out by violence, settling at last in an unknown town. The key words are image, honour, in the Lord and get up.
Setting.
Genesis 1 is a solemn, ordered account of creation, which many scholars think received its final form around the time of the exile in Babylon. Other stories known in that world described human beings as made to serve the gods and spare them labour. Genesis says something far greater: every man and woman bears the image of God and is blessed by him.
After the repeated “God said” of the earlier days, the rhythm changes at v. 26. God does not simply command; he says “Let us make”. Humanity is the crown of the sixth day, and the only creature said to be in God’s image.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;” (1:26)
The Hebrew plural has been explained as a plural of majesty or as God speaking to his heavenly court. Many Fathers heard in it a first hint of the Trinity, which the Christian may read in the full light of the New Testament. The word “humankind” translates ’ādām, used here for the whole human race.
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (1:27)
The verse moves from “him” in the Hebrew (’ōtô) to “them”. One humanity, two persons who face each other. Jesus returns to this verse when he speaks of marriage (Matthew 19:4).
“God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it;” (1:28)
The first words God speaks to the human couple are a blessing. Children appear in the Bible first as blessing, not as burden.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that man and woman were willed by God in perfect equality as persons (CCC 369), and that Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in God’s image and ends with the wedding feast of the Lamb (CCC 1602). The family is “a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 2205). “Subduing” the earth is the task of stewards, not arbitrary and destructive domination (CCC 373). St Irenaeus distinguishes the image from the likeness to which we grow by the Spirit (in substance). St John Paul II taught that to be in God’s image means to exist in relationship, in a communion of persons (Mulieris Dignitatem 7).
Setting.
Jesus son of Sirach, or Ben Sira, was a teacher in Jerusalem about 180 BC. His grandson translated the book into Greek in Egypt some decades later, as the book’s own prologue says. Large portions of the Hebrew text have been recovered in modern times. The Catholic Church receives the book as inspired Scripture. Its old Latin name, Ecclesiasticus, reflects its long use in the Church.
Ben Sira’s world was changing quickly under Greek culture, and the young were drawn to new ways. He takes the commandment of Exodus 20:12 and turns it into a small sermon, showing what it means inside a home.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“For the Lord honors a father above his children, and he confirms a mother’s right over her children.” (3:2)
Father and mother stand side by side throughout this passage. In a society that gave the father most of the power, this equal naming matters.
“Those who honor their father atone for sins,” (3:3)
A strong saying. It does not compete with the sacrifice of Christ. It says that sin is healed also through love that repairs what selfishness has damaged.
“Those who respect their father will have long life, and those who honor their mother obey the Lord;” (3:6)
The Malayalam POC reads the second half differently (the one who obeys the Lord gladdens his mother). The ancient texts of Sirach differ in places. In both forms, obeying God and honouring a mother belong together.
“Honor your father by word and deed, that his blessing may come upon you.” (3:8)
Honour is spoken and done: a respectful voice, a visit, a hospital bill paid. The chapter goes on to speak of the care of a father in old age (3:12–13), just beyond today’s reading.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism draws on this teaching for the fourth commandment: respect for parents comes from gratitude to those who gave us life (CCC 2214–2215), and grown children owe their parents material and moral support in old age, sickness, loneliness or distress (CCC 2218). This commandment opens the second table of the Decalogue and shows the order of charity (CCC 2197).
Setting.
Colossians is written from prison (4:3, 18) to a young Church in the Lycus valley, in what is now western Turkey. Just before this passage Paul has listed the clothing of the new life: compassion, kindness, patience, forgiveness and, above all, love (3:12–14), and he has said, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (3:17). Today’s verses apply that to the home.
Scholars call such passages “household codes” (see also Ephesians 5:21–6:9; 1 Peter 2:18–3:7). Ancient writers on the household usually addressed its head. Paul speaks directly to wives and children as well as to husbands and fathers, and he gives duties to every side.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” (3:18)
“In the Lord” sets the measure. Nothing that goes against the Lord can be demanded in his name.
“Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.” (3:19)
The Greek speaks of becoming bitter toward someone. Paul forbids the sourness and hardness of a man who has power in the house.
“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord.” (3:20)
Written to children who were expected to be present when the letter was read in the assembly. They are members of the Church in their own right.
“Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.” (3:21)
The ancient father held wide legal power over his children. Here he is told to think of how his child feels. This was a quiet revolution.
How the Church reads it.
St John Paul II read such texts in the light of Ephesians 5:21: the subjection in Christian marriage is mutual (Mulieris Dignitatem 24). Pope Francis says the same: what we must keep from this teaching is the revealed call to mutual love and service, not any form of domination (Amoris Laetitia 156). St John Chrysostom, preaching on Ephesians, calls a household “a little Church” (in substance). The Second Vatican Council speaks of the family as “domestic Church” (Lumen Gentium 11; CCC 1655–1657, 2204).
Setting.
The Magi have gone home by another road. Matthew now tells three short episodes, each ending with a prophecy, the first and last led by a dream: the flight to Egypt (2:13–15), the killing at Bethlehem (2:16–18, read tomorrow) and the return (2:19–23).
Herod the Great was a capable and feared ruler who killed even members of his own family when he suspected a threat, as the historian Josephus records. He died in 4 BC. His kingdom was divided among his sons: Archelaus received Judea, and Antipas received Galilee. Josephus reports that Archelaus began his rule with a bloody repression at Passover; Rome removed him in AD 6.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you;” (2:13)
Joseph is given no date and no plan, only the next step. St John Chrysostom notes that the angel no longer says “your wife”, as in 1:20, but “his mother” (in substance): the child born of Mary is now the centre of Joseph’s life.
“Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt,” (2:14)
“By night”: he does not wait for morning. The Son of God begins his earthly life as a refugee, carried over a border in the dark.
““Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.”” (2:20)
These words echo what the Lord told Moses in Midian: “all those who were seeking your life are dead” (Exodus 4:19). Jesus relives the story of Moses and Israel: threatened by a king, saved, called out of Egypt.
“And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.” (2:22)
Joseph is afraid, and the text does not hide it. Faith does not mean having no fear. God leads him through ordinary caution as well as through dreams.
“There he made his home in a town called Nazareth,” (2:23)
A small village never mentioned in the Old Testament. The great journey of the infancy story ends in an unknown place, where the Son of God will live most of his life.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the flight into Egypt and the killing of the innocents show the opposition of darkness to the light, and that Jesus’ whole life was lived under the sign of persecution, while his departure from Egypt recalls the Exodus (CCC 530). His hidden life at Nazareth, in obedience, is the way of most human beings (CCC 531–533). Pope Pius XII opened his constitution on migrants, Exsul Familia (1952), with the Holy Family in exile. Pope Francis writes that every family should look to the icon of the Holy Family, whose daily life had its burdens and even nightmares, and he thinks of refugee families today (Amoris Laetitia 30). Pope Francis describes St Joseph as an obedient and creatively courageous father (Patris Corde 3, 5).
Does Colossians 3:18 mean a husband may dominate his wife?
No. The verse says “as is fitting in the Lord”, and it stands next to the command that husbands love and never treat their wives harshly. The Church reads these words in the light of mutual subjection in Christ (Ephesians 5:21; Mulieris Dignitatem 24; Amoris Laetitia 156). The text gives no support to violence or fear in a home.
Must I obey my parents “in everything”, even as an adult, or if they ask something wrong?
Paul writes to children living in the home. The Catechism teaches that a child must obey in all that is asked for his or her good or that of the family, but must not obey if conscience sees that the request is morally wrong (CCC 2217). Once grown, children no longer owe the same obedience, but honour and care remain for life (CCC 2217–2218). Honouring a parent who has hurt a child does not mean denying the wound; it may mean care from a safe distance, with prayer.
Did the flight to Egypt really happen? Is there any other record?
Only Matthew tells it. Yet it fits what is known: Herod’s violence, the Jewish community in Egypt and the division of the kingdom after his death. Matthew tells real events and shows, through Scripture, what they mean.
Many Syro-Malabar families live what this Gospel describes: a father or mother working in the Gulf or far from home, children raised across borders, journeys made for the sake of the family. The Holy Family knew the road and the unfamiliar land. Family prayer in the evening, long loved in Kerala homes, is the practice of what Colossians asks. On this Sunday of the Nativity season the Holy Qurbana gathers these scattered families around the Child whom Mary and Joseph carried, and the home becomes again a little Church.