The time between the great celebration of Christmas and the celebration of the New Year, we are called to reflect on what it means to be family. While celebrating Christmas, many African-Americans celebrate the Christmas values during KWANZAA. Kwanzaa is a cultural celebration of the harvest where we look at the values of faith and family as we offer to God our first fruits.

In the Gospel of today, we see that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph went to Jerusalem to celebrate the annual Jewish festival and Jesus was lost in the Temple. Mary and Joseph’s search for Jesus made them return to Jerusalem to find him teaching among the elders and wise people. Jesus asked his mother, Mary, “Was I not supposed to be about my Father’s business?”

We too are called to be about God’s business and we witness and proclaim about all the things that God has done for us. Jesus is the Word of God who became human. Jesus enters our human history to show us what it really means to be human. Today’s readings invite us to focus on family relationships. At a very basic level, we are all “children of God” (1 John 3:1). Pope Francis says about the family: ‘every family is always a light, however faint, amid the darkness of this world.’ Even in the darkness that can go with family living in poverty, in addiction and conflict, there is a light in the love of people’s hearts.

The Feast of the Holy Family encourages us in giving thanks to all the people God places in our lives. The principles of KWANZAA speak to our longing to be better as a family. Unity (Umoja), Self-determination (Kujichagulia), Collective work and responsibility (Ujima), Cooperative economics (Ujamaa), Purpose (Nia), Creativity (Kuumba), and Faith (Imani) are all important principles that can guide our families to be better as we struggle together to be closer in the family of God.