“Anna was a minister of hospitality, a contemplative, and an evangelist! How much better could growing old ever get than to spend my time doing that?”

“She treasures all these things, and ponders them in her heart, always aware that the consequences of her Yes to God’s plan involve a supreme sacrifice and a total abandonment that opens up a radical freedom. The courage to say Yes is one thing – the ability to remain faithful and steadfast is indeed another.”

“the Holy Family carries an enduring significance, a universal meaning...we are invited to consider their interaction, their family relationship together, best described perhaps as a communion of love”

“Anna made a difficult status in life into a great blessing for herself, for others, and for the Kingdom of God. She proclaimed “the king of glory.” She took the light of Christ and gave it back to Him, to Mary and Joseph, to all she talked to about the child–and today, to me.”

“Today I encourage you to read Luke 2: 22-40 slowly two or three times. Then let yourself enter the scene. What in the scene as you pray draws you and holds you?”

“one of the key functions of a family is to provide a warm and loving space in which children can mature and ultimately go out from to find their own place in the world”

“The child’s life is not to be measured according to success or failure in achieving a set of human goals, but in faithfulness to God’s life giving promises. We are freed from the burden of self-fulfilment for God Himself becomes our fulfilment.”

“We all have gifts, and every time we gather as a faith community we celebrate the great diversity of the gifts around us. But yet it often seems that in this world of ours, some gifts are celebrated more than others.”

“Those who think that the Holy Family is made up of flimsy figures acting mechanically should read all the relevant texts”

“Mary and Joseph bring him to the temple because no child belongs wholly and completely to its parents. The child belongs first to God, then to his parents and through them to society.”

“There has only been one Holy Family upon earth, and it is now re-united in heaven. But scattered all over the earth there are no doubt many people and many families who try in their own way to reproduce the life of Nazareth by putting God first in everything and doing his holy will, whatever happens.”

“Simeon is telling Mary, “This child will hurt you.” Why? Because Mary was a mother, and the same movement that opened her to a mother’s love, opened her to a mother’s pain.”

“Simeon and Anna were able to recognize God’s presence in the infant Christ. They invite us to recognize God’s presence in our lives. They ask us to slow down, to look deeper, to recognize all the opportunities that lie around us...we must do more than look. We must be willing to see.”

“might I suggest on this Holy Family Sunday focus on St. Joseph, this dreamer, this man that saw at a higher level of perception, this protector of the body of Christ. Reach out to him in prayer”

“And it is the body with its appetites, its pleasures and all its various functions that God has chosen to make his love known among us. God's very self did not despise the human body but chose to inhabit it and to share in all its fullness, in all the messiness of human existence.”

“My prayer for each and every one of us, myself included, is that we may have the patience and the dedication that Anna showed, the willingness to keep going to the Temple to pray, the willingness to fast so that we may remain close to God that he may remain close to us”

“it’s easy to wonder why God allowed things to be so difficult for them, and why God allows things to be difficult for people today. But that is the wrong question. With the virtues of love, acceptance and faithfulness, each of us has the power to transform difficulties in some way, as Mary and Joseph did.”

“So let us all intentionally be given over to God and open to God. Let us earnestly pray that God may guide our children and guide their parents.”

“We can better understand God’s plan for restoring salvation to the human race, when we see how Mary is chosen to be the mother of His Divine Son, and Joseph as his protector”

“The Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph marveled, but not because they did not know who Christ was. They were in awe at the way God was gradually revealing the mystery behind their child.”

“Covenants form families. God saves us through covenants, especially the New Covenant, because the New Covenant makes us truly into the family of God. To be saved is to enter into the divine family.”

“And if we cannot find the time for God – saying a prayer before meals, reading some scripture instead of watching TV...then how can we expect to ever approach the type of family unit that was lived to perfection by Jesus, Mary and Joseph?”

“I have come to realize how fortunate I am to have had, in spite of weaknesses, a loving family. More than my dad's drinking, I remember his kindness and faith and courage and hard work as a traveling salesman...I had a great gift. I had a family.”

“We are being challenged to look back on history and see beyond the obvious to understand where and how God is or is not working in our world even now in unexpected ways and places. It is ours to search out and align ourselves with God’s work and make of our resolutions a new beginning of salvation.”

“Joseph subordinated his compassion for his family to the will and purpose of God. He didn't stop loving Mary and child but he situated his love for them within the framework of his love for God and that my friends is what made him holy and what made his family life holy. Love of God came first.”