The answer is: God makes a family a holy family!

Jesus, Mary and Joseph are commonly called “The Holy Family”. The Virgin Mary was chosen to be the mother of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God incarnate. St. Joseph was chosen to be His foster father. What made them holy was their full trust in God and their complete surrender to do His holy will.

Let’s reflect on the ingredients that can make our families more holy.

Firstly let’s consider what holiness is.

To be holy means to be set apart and consecrated to God, living exclusively to do His holy will.

“But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” 1 Peter 1:15-16

“For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the LORD. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you. And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.” 2 Corinthians 6:16 – 7:1

Holiness is not something that miraculously happens to us. We become holy when we strive to live in a perfect communion with God, living in His holy presence and considering how to please Him in our day-to-day lives.

There are three key ingredients to being holy: faith, hope and love.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” 1 John 4:16

If we want to be holy and we want our families to be holy, God must be in the center of our lives. We must invite Him into our hearts and lives and work to give Him glory in all that we do and in all our relationships.

You may be thinking ‘my family will never be holy’ but remember the Scripture “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Mark 10:27

God can change our hearts and our lives. God can heal our brokenness one day at a time if we trust in Him and have the kind of faith that can move mountains. This faith is especially important when things don’t go as we would like them to go, when arguments happen, when you may feel abused or betrayed, when people get sick and when we struggle to remain positive.

That’s when we have to remember that we are not alone! God lives in us and with us and He is the source of all hope and in that hope there is consolation and comfort.

My prayer for you and your family is this:

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 5:13

All disciples of Jesus must proclaim God’s love through word and deed and prayer. Love is a choice to honour God, to give Him the glory and praise He so deserves.

The kind of love that makes families holy is a patient love, slow to anger, quick to forgive, compassionate and merciful. When my children were young I was determined to teach them to say “I am sorry” and “I forgive you”.   Sometimes mothers and fathers make mistakes and that’s when we need to say “I am sorry” so our children can learn to say “I forgive you.”

Holy families must live in a continuous dialogue with God and with one another.  We must make time for God and for each other so we can know and understand one another as we strive to know and understand God’s will for us.  We must trust in the Holy Spirit to nourish us with the gifts of wisdom, knowledge and understanding, right judgment and reverence for God. Sometimes there will be disagreements and even fights as we lose our patience, and in those moments we must pray that God gives us the grace to reconcile with one another as God gives us the courage to admit our mistakes.

The story of salvation began with a humble woman, the Virgin Mary, being willing to say “Let it be done to me according to your word” Luke 1:38 And then she conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and God was born in her and lived with her.

We too must be tabernacles for the Almighty God who wants to live in us and with us. Let us invite Him into our families. Let us speak about His will and pray that our children may grow to love God and serve Him.

Prayer is essential to holiness. To understand how to do God’s will we must be continuously praying and reflecting on the choices we are making. Let us pray for our immediate families as well as our extended families and most importantly let us pray for the global family of God.

Jesus died so that we could all be ONE family! On the night before Jesus died, Jesus prayed for His apostles and for all souls, that all may believe in Him.

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,  that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17: 20-23

It is our job as disciples of Jesus to pray for all souls.  Let us pray that all will come to believe in Jesus and hope in His endless love.  Let us pray that  all souls can be reconciled to God and become instruments of His holy will.

“Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.” Ephesians 2:18-19

Please join the Christian movement that is praying for all people to be reconciled to God. We come together in a prayer to change the world, every day at the time Our Lord Jesus died for us, 3pm in our local time zones. At this time we remember the Passion of Christ and we pray for the mercy of Our Saviour upon our global family, that all may come to have faith, hope and love in their hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit that convinces people to turn away from evil and seek peace and truth in Jesus Christ. Learn more here