The Lectionary for Holy Family Sunday uses the same first and second readings for Years A, B, and C, but the gospel changes each year. This year’s gospel is Matthew. One might be tempted to dismiss the reading from Ben Sira, the second-century BCE teacher in Jerusalem, on the grounds that he reflects a patriarchal world. That would be wrong, for according to Stephen J. Pope in Commonweal (Oct. 10, 2024), Sirach’s view of family responsibility resonates in particular with the Catholic sense that our natural human loves — how we are connected to one another as spouses, parents, friends, and neighbors – are corrected and healed by divine love rather than stamped out and replaced by some kind of love suitable only to saints and angels. The Catholic axiom that grace perfects rather than destroys human nature implies that we ought to love those with whom we share special bonds of affection and loyalty. It also recognizes that grace seeks to root out the egocentric distortions of our love of self, family, and friends, and fosters a special concern for the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the exploited in our communities and beyond. 

Matthew’s account of the holy family as refugees in Israel and Egypt seems to differ totally from Sirach’s domestic setting. Yet the gospel is also radical — the slaughter of innocent children and the holy family unable to find safety at home. Yet even as helpless refugees, the holy family displays God’s fidelity, for the family repeats the transformation of Abraham’s enslaved family in Egypt into the nation, Israel. In the opening chapters of the book of Exodus, Abraham’s family are on the brink of extinction because the pharaoh decreed that all the male children be drowned in the Nile River. The ones who rescued Israel were five women who by their courage and wit enabled the infant Moses to grow into maturity and come back to defeat the pharaoh and lead Israel out of Egypt into their homeland. The name of the pharaoh is forgotten today, but Moses is forever celebrated as savior. Israel endured and flourishes to this day as the Lord’s beloved people. God reinforces whatever good people manage to do.

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.