Feast of the Holy Family, A December 28, 2025
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Mary was conceived without sin. Mary is the most perfect servant of God to ever exist. Mary gave birth to God’s own son. Yet, Mary gets exactly one visit from an angel. But Joseph? He gets not one, but four visits from angels. There’s the first confirming Mary’s claim before Jesus is born. Then there are the three we see today. One telling him to flee to Egypt, another telling him to go home, and a third telling him to go to Nazareth instead of Judea. Why does Joseph get so much angelic attention? After all, it was Mary’s yes that started off this whole vocation to be the “Holy Family” in the first place, so why is it now Joseph’s prerogative to make the big decisions?
Because he’s the head of the household. Some people get uncomfortable about that language. I get that. The Lord knows there are plenty of examples of abusive fatherhood, tyrannical “headship,” “toxic masculinity.” I’ve heard stories that make me say, “yeah, I get why you have a problem with the subordination language.” Still, understanding a person’s discomfort isn’t the same as sharing their belief. There’s an important scriptural truth here. Part of being Catholic is that we want the truth even when it’s hard to grasp.
There are some bad ideas about this whole topic. People on either extreme hear our second reading say “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands,” and think it means a kind of slavish obedience, as if the wife has to do everything the husband says. Whether that idea horrifies you or excites you, that’s not what that means. When Paul adds the phrase “as is proper in the Lord” to “be subordinate,” he’s giving the context. As I pointed out last Sunday, Mary was already legally married to Joseph when she said “yes” to the angel; she did not ask his permission. If Joseph and Mary are a model of family life, then we aren’t talking about a one-sided power structure with the husband deciding everything.
On top of that, the verses right before that line are all about mutual Christian charity: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Paul also says, “in all wisdom teach and admonish one another.” To “admonish” means to correct or warn someone. That means wives can teach and correct their husbands just as husbands can teach and correct their wives. As with any part of scripture, we always have to remember the connection to the rest of scripture. In a different letter – the one to the Ephesians – Paul says this same command in a slightly different way: “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.” Notice that subordination to each other comes first. In that letter, Paul then spends 6 verses outlining how men should treat their wives: as their own bodies, as Christ loved the Church, as their own selves, as the one whom they wish to sanctify and make holy.
Then there’s the word “be subordinate,” sometimes translated as “submit.” Either way, that word means this: to be “sub” – under – the “order” or “mission” of someone else. The husband’s “mission” or “order” isn’t himself. He doesn’t have authority for his own benefit. His mission, his order is to love her as his own body and to love as Christ did… to be crucified for her. A wife’s subordination means to cooperate with the husband’s self-sacrifice for the good of the family. Christianity has always taught that authority is limited. An unjust law is no law at all. We can never be required to obey what is evil.
So yes, the Church teaches that a man is head of his wife, but if the man is the head, the wife is the heart. Which is more “important” for staying alive? They are equally “important” for different reasons. There is no one perfect way to live this out. It’s not like “man goes to the office, wife stays at home” is the only acceptable arrangement. If that works for your family, great! But that is not the only way. Much of history shows both men and women working near the home to make a living: farming, crafting, and trading in the local town. In Christian family life, what matters most is that it is both sacramental and human.
What do I mean by a marriage being human? I mean it accepts human nature. Men and women are different; any arrangement that treats them as the same is going to do damage to everyone involved. There are many tasks that can and should be done by both men and women. In a general sense, some tasks are done more effectively by women and some more effectively by men – it’s not wrong to acknowledge that. Individual men and women can vary quite a bit, so the specific situation for any family will require prudence – using good judgment. The work of a woman should not excessively compete with her more important tasks of being wife and mother. Neither should the work of a man excessively compete with the more important tasks of being husband and father. A man can be nurturing, but he can never give birth or nurse a child. A woman can be faithful and provide discipline, but we know that dads have the highest statistical impact on their child’s faith and discipline. Whatever a family does to make a living or care for the household, both man and wife should work in such a way that their unique gifts and responsibilities are accounted for. A Christian family should be human, not robotic or artificial or political.
A Christian family should also be sacramental. I don’t just mean “get your marriage done in the Church.” Though, if you need to get your marriage convalidated or “blessed,” please come see me! What I’m talking about, though, is that “sacramental” means “a visible sign of an invisible reality.” Giving roses to a girl is a kind of “sacramental;” it is a visible sign of the invisible reality of love and affection. Marriage is both a capital “S” sacrament and full of little sacramental signs.
Marriage is not just for the couple themselves. Their very relationship is meant to be a visible reminder of God’s love for humanity. Mary and Joseph are married so they can raise Jesus and take care of each other, but they are also a sign to us of God’s love. They move to Nazareth as a practical reality, but it is also a sign of a prophecy and of the bigger picture. A man’s “headship” is more about reminding him to act in such a way that we recognize how Jesus treated the Church. A wife’s “submission” is more about reminder her to act in such a way that we recognize how the Church is supposed to respond to Jesus. Obviously, both man and wife have to sacrifice for each other and both have to humbly receive and cooperate with God’s love. Still, the way life is created, the unique impact mom and dad have on their children, the different ways the male and female brain and body respond to love and stress – these point in a million subtle ways to the overarching story of salvation, the story of a God who offers himself in love to humanity and – in Mary and all the saints – how humanity receives that love, returning it to him in a way that allows life and grace to flourish.
It’s a mystical thing – marriage and family – but also deeply earthly, practical, and gross. It’s kind of weird, too. Joseph – the only person in the family who isn’t perfectly sinless – gets entrusted with headship of the Holy Family. Why, because he’s more important? No. Simply because that dynamic shows us something of God’s design. Why does Mary – the teenaged girl who is kinda married but not fully married yet – get to decide the fate of both her husband and the whole universe? Because it shows us something of God’s design.
And if I could clearly articulate what those “somethings” are, we wouldn’t need the sacramentality of it all, now would we? So, what do we do with all this? Contemplate it. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Meditate on what Sts. Peter and Paul say about husbands and wives. Ponder the example of Mary and Joseph. Carefully consider your own family life. Try to set aside worldly power games and vain ideas of who is better. It’s less about checking specific boxes or matching specific behaviors and more about tapping into the deep well of truth, allowing it to mold your heart and mind, and then seeing how that unfolds in the particular circumstances of your own family.
See family for what it is: a deeply human reality made into something more, something sacramental. God first entered the world through the door of marriage; he began with a holy family. He did it the first time and he wants to keep doing it that way. If you’ll let him, he’ll keep entering the world, keep pouring out his grace and love through door of another marriage, another holy family… yours.