Dear Diocesan Family,
For the Closing Mass of the Jubilee Year of Hope on Holy Family Sunday, December 28, 2025, I had prepared a homily that spoke to the role of the family in the current world scene, using the image of a door closing and a window opening. As we open a new window into 2026, I want to share with you that homily, whose delivery was preempted by icy weather at Mass time. It is also a prelude to Pope Leo XVI’s beautiful message for the World Day of Prayer for Peace, which I highly encourage all to read. I pray that this New Year will be a time where all can enter more deeply into our relationship with Christ and His Church. God’s blessings upon you and your loved ones at its very start!
Bishop Lucia
On Saturday, Dec. 20, Pope Leo XIV had the final Jubilee audience for the Jubilee Year of Hope that was inaugurated by Pope Francis last Christmas Eve. On that occasion, Pope Leo told the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square: “The Jubilee is coming to an end; however, the hope that this Year has given us does not finish: we will continue to be pilgrims of hope … to hope is to generate.”
A symbol of the closing of a Jubilee Year is the closing of the Jubilee Doors in the four papal basilicas of Rome. On Christmas Day, the Jubilee Door at the Basilica of St. Mary Major (which I did pass through during my recent trip to Rome) was closed; and yesterday, the Holy Door at the Pope’s cathedral, St. John Lateran, was sealed shut until the next Jubilee in 2033, which will be a Jubilee Year of Redemption.
On Christmas night, as he presided over the ceremony of the closing of the Jubilee Door, Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, archpriest of the basilica, stated in his homily: “Today we have seen the Holy Door close, but the door that truly matters is the door of the heart … Having crossed the Holy Door was a gift; now becoming doors open to others is our mission.”
Brothers and sisters, as we gather this evening as a diocesan Church in observance of the closing of the Jubilee Year, words my mother spoke to me as a twenty-something when I was wrestling with my vocation come to mind: “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” In this moment, as you and I arrive at the conclusion of this Jubilee Year of Hope, I wonder aloud how I … how you … can continue to allow the hope and love found at Bethlehem, be found in our dwellings today?
This, I believe, is the heart of the matter in this Sunday’s gospel. Without putting words into anyone’s mouth, I think most of us here have experienced the sentiment: “Family can be one of life’s greatest blessings but also one of its greatest challenges.” These relationships can support you and me in times of need, but they are also often the source of frustration and tension.
As is often the case, sisters and brothers, we do not choose our families; however, what we can choose is how to respond. Our attempts to love our family members, even when difficult and no matter how imperfectly, allow you and me to continue to be pilgrims growing in hope ourselves, while being an encouraging word … an encouraging presence … to those facing life’s difficulties.
This choice counters the claim of some in our world — that Catholic family life … being a holy family — means living as a sort of sacred fortress in the midst of the world, cutting itself off as much as possible from the threats that surround us; and interacting as little as possible with the world’s environment. The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph did not live separately from the world — they lived in the world. Yet, in doing so, they allowed their belief and faith in God to influence all aspects of their lives privately and publicly, as testified to in last Sunday’s gospel about Joseph’s coming to terms with God’s plan for Mary’s life and for his life.
Some individuals, including leaders of government and society, in the present day see religion as a private affair and willingly put aside their religious upbringing in the public square, claiming they are seeking to serve the greater society. How can that be? St. John Paul II insisted in his 1981 Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio — On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World: “[The Christian family] is not closed in on itself, but remains open to the community, moved by a sense of justice and concern for others, as well as, by a consciousness of responsibility towards the whole of society” (64).
Brothers and sisters, the Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt is a family making a life-and-death decision because of the political environment of the day and the turmoil that accompanied it. It is obvious that Joseph has no desire to uproot his family and flee to Egypt, but there is no other choice. Sisters and brothers, let us not be naïve in thinking that such decisions do not need to be made in the present day by families — by mothers and fathers — for the very life of their children. As another influential woman in my life counselled me when I was being too critical about another person: “Don’t be quick to judge another, until you have walked in their shoes.”
You and I can only imagine Mary and Joseph’s fear as they stole away under the cover of darkness and all the hardships faced in a treacherous desert crossing to the land of Egypt. Matthew says nothing about what happened when they arrived in a strange place, having to navigate in an unfamiliar language and culture. However, from our own human experience, we can surmise the following questions arising: “Who would welcome them in their plight? Who would help them along the way? How did they find a place to live, and how did Joseph find work? How did they survive in a strange land?”
The experience of the Holy Family having to flee for their lives into a foreign country brings to the forefront a question we as disciples of Jesus Christ and as members of the human family cannot simply ignore, “What kind of welcome do we offer to newcomers — especially those facing political persecution, duress, and even the threat of death in their homelands — if they were none other than Jesus’ own family?”
In the present moment, it is too easy to use the word “illegal” to close oneself off from the difficulties that others are facing in the human family, or to wash one’s hands of the treatment or lack of care such family members receive. The ego of Herod and his desire to be in charge of all aspects of life that affect one’s grasp on control can still be found in our present day world — seeking to exterminate at all stages of life those who disturb our personal comfort whether the very young or those troubled in body, mind, or spirit or the elders among us who need our attention.
Today, sisters and brothers, in this moment, as we close the door to this Jubilee Year of Hope, let us not forget to open a window that allows such hope to continue to escape into our world in the present moment. As St. Paul instructs the local Church of Colossae in his day: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another … as the Lord has forgiven you … and over all of these put on love … and let the words of Christ dwell richly in you … do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Once there was a gentleman who saw a poor child shivering in the winter cold. He asked God why he would allow such a thing to happen to one so innocent, and what God was going to do about it. God responded back to him, “I made you.” Amen.
