Reflection for the Feast of the Holy Family

December 28, 2025

There are different translations of the Bible, which was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. There is a New American Bible, which has American idiom in it. A New English Bible reflects a British flavor. The King James version included lofty language and ‘thee’s’ and ‘thou’s.’ I also have Bibles in French Spanish and Polish. I find that, sometimes, it’s good to hear something from a different perspective. It can make one think. It can offer new insights. With that in mind, the following is a mother’s paraphrase of St. Paul’s inspiring reflection on the centrality of love, found in 1 Corinthians 13

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Though I speak with the language of educators and psychiatrists and have not love, I am as blaring brass or a crashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of planning my child’s future and understanding all the mysteries of a child’s mind and have ample knowledge of teenagers, and though I have faith in my children, so that I could remove their mountains of doubts and fears and have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed and nourish them properly, and though I give my body to backbreaking housework and have not love, it profits me not.

Love is patient with the naughty child and is kind. Love does not envy when a child wants to move to grandma’s house because “she is nice.”

Love is not anxious to impress a teenager with one’s superior knowledge.

Love has good manners in the home—does not act selfishly or with a martyr complex, is not easily provoked by normal childish actions.

Love does not remember the wrongs of yesterday and love thinks no evil—it gives the child the benefit of the doubt.

Love does not make light of sin in the child’s life (or in her own, either), but rejoices when he or she comes to a knowledge of the truth.

Love does not fail. Wherether there be comfortable surroundings, they shall fail; whether there be total communication between parents and children, it will cease; whether there be good education, it shall vanish.

When we were children, we spoke and acted and understood as children, but now that we have become parents, we must act maturely.

Now abide faith, hope, and love—these three are needed in the home. Faith in Jesus Christ, eternal hope for the future of the child, and God’s love shed in our hearts, but the greatest of these is love.

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Mrs. Mervin Seashore, in Brian Cavanaugh, T.O.R., Fresh Packet of Sower’s Seeds: Third Planting, Copyright 1994 by Brian Cavanaugh, T.O.R., published by Paulist Press, Mahwah, NJ.