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The Lord Is My Chef Christmas Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday in the Octave of Christmas, Feast of the Holy Family, 30 December 2022 Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14 ><}}}}*> Colossians 3:12-21 ><}}}}*> Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
God our loving Father, thank you for sending us your Son Jesus through the husband and wife of Joseph and Mary; as we celebrate today the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you remind us too that Christmas is a living story that happens daily when you come first in every family.
Help us imitate the Holy Family in getting closer with you and with one another in their flight to Egypt when they faced so much sufferings and hardships; how sad that as families face so many attacks these days from within and from the outside, family members have failed to realize that our flights to Egypt when we have to go through trials and difficulties are occasions to get closer to Jesus and one another; teach us to go back to you in prayer as a family, to bring back our altars of sacred images and icons now replaced by the giant flatscreen TV; enable us to reach out more to one another, to hug more, to converse more than to spend the whole day before the computer screen and cellphone or with business partners and colleagues or friends and classmates.
Most of all, as Ben Sirach and St. Paul reminded us in our first two readings today, make us realize that our relationships in the family mirror our relationship with you, O God, our Father; let all our love and charity, kindness and care begin at home because that is where Christ comes first to us! Amen.
