The Fifth Day of Christmas: the Holy Family

Happy fifth day of Christmas! Today, the Church usually celebrates the memorial of Saint Thomas Becket. Because it’s the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas, it is instead the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In the Holy Family, God gives us a living icon of family life: child, mother, father.

And more than that, this being an icon and not just a pattern or ideal, we are given an icon of a holy family life centered on God. This family was beset by the problems of the world – from being refugees in Egypt from Herod’s wrath right up until the moment Mary’s heart broke at the sight of her son’s brutal torture and execution.

And yet, they made for themselves a home, wherever they were. A home of love and domestic joy.

Of course, today’s psalm reminds us that even in the midst of the family home, we are only pilgrims upon this earth, journeying towards our heavenly home.

Happy they who dwell in your house!
Continually they praise you.
Happy the men whose strength you are!
Their hearts are set upon the pilgrimage.

– from Psalm 84, Responsorial Psalm for today’s Feast
(second option)

Through all their joys and travails, the Holy Family discerned and followed the will of God, and they turned to each other. They become not just the model but the very definition of a holy family.

As I mentioned above, the Sunday feast trumps the memorial ordinarily celebrated on December 29, that of St. Thomas Becket. Over the years, I’ve written many articles on this, one of my favourite saints. Check them out below!

Previous articles on Saint Thomas Becket:

2023: The Liturgy of Saint Thomas Becket
(How to celebrate an Optional Memorial during the Octave of Christmas)

2021: Saint Thomas Becket, Obedience, and the Sacred Liturgy
(Obedience, freedom, and Traditionis Custodes)

2020: Saint Thomas Becket
(The saint’s treasured “little book” found at last)

2018: Becket
(On martyrdom and liberty, with some help from Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B.)

2016: On Obedience and Confusion
(Ruminations on obedience as the greatest freedom, touching on both the saint and Amoris Lætitia)

2015: On Pilgrimage
(A deeper look into pilgrimages and why we do them)

2014: A Happy Death
(Thoughts on the saint’s martyrdom and the grace of a happy death)

2012: Becket and Chaucer
(A meditation on pilgrimage)

2011: Saint Thomas Becket
(G.K. Chesterton on Becket’s martyrdom)

2010: Becket
(Becket, More, and Henry VIII (that jerk))

2009: Saint Thomas Becket
(Becket’s martrydom, an eyewitness account)