This feast is usually celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas but not when Christmas falls on a Sunday. It is fitting that, within the octave of the Birth of Christ, we should celebrate a feast for the family of Jesus with His mother, Mary, and foster-father, Joseph. In each year of the liturgy cycle, the Gospel recounts an experience in the life of this Family. Today it is the presenting of Jesus to God in the Temple as the first-born child. It is an occasion filled with both joy and sadness. Joy in the special occasion coupled with the consoling words of the old man Simeon, who had waited his whole life to lay eyes on the Messiah. Sadness in his prophetic words that a sword of sadness would pierce Mary's heart, referring, of course, to the suffering her Son would undergo. In this, the Holy Family was not unlike millions of others with its share of joys and times of sadness and pain. The Family of Jesus was not insulated in any way from the experiences of any normal family. At the same time, it was undoubtedly a model of peace and unity. Let us strive that this may be true of our families also. Paul's words today to the Christians of Colossae need to be listened to and lived. If lived, they can transform any family into a home for God.