Our car tires crunched over the gravel drive leading to her weathered, dilapidated home. The wooden beams splintered and sagged from years of baking beneath the scorching Arizona sun. Handsewn curtains flapped in the breeze, showing the cracked and sometimes missing windows where thin plywood took their place.
She stood barefoot, wisps of her silver hair loose from her long braid, as she flipped homemade tortillas on a large stone. The embers glowed and the sweet smell of smoke hung thick in the night air. Her wrinkled hands were strong and steady. Her eyes shone brightly as she smiled and waved to my grandparents. Once a month, we came and bought tortillas and a traditional soup called menudo. Sometimes my grandfather would play his guitar for her. They would all talk as the stars twinkled and the stray dogs wandered throughout her yard. Sometimes she would scoop heaping bowls of menudo and wrap steaming hot tortillas for those who had nowhere to lay their heads, those with no money in their pockets.
The Old House on the Corner: A Home That Welcomes
These were nameless souls, loved by God, but hardly loved by anyone else on this earth—except her. I wondered how she did this. I wondered why she did this. The old woman in her worn dress and threadbare apron white with flour, hunched over from years of physical labor, giving from her meager reserves. Even as a child, I marveled at her. She seemed to have nothing and everything all at once. But besides her beauty and her goodness, what I remember most vividly is the large statue of the Holy Family in front of her ramshackle house. Carved by her exquisite hands, it beckoned all those in need of solace to come and find it.
As I grew older, my admiration for her increased. I wanted to be simple, holy, and hidden as she was. I wanted to love others and give of myself radically. When the Lord blessed us with a large family and very few finances, I realized that these concepts are easy to contemplate, but quite hard to live out when they become your reality.
Christ, in His perfect will, had called us into a life of openness of heart to all He desired to give us. Receive this in love was the Lord’s gentle whisper. There have been times when I have obeyed, but more often than not, I am like Jacob, wrestling. However, in my weakest moments, I am always given the grace of remembering the statue of the Holy Family. I imagine her smile as she lovingly carved their holy countenances.
The Holy Family: Our Hope and Comfort
The Holy Family is a shining beacon of hope. When we are tempted to despair, they are the remedy. The Holy Family is the model we long for in this current world. They bring true comfort—not to be confused with comfortability, the fleeting emotion rocked and ravaged by the sea of life. It is more than that. It is the purest peace: the peace to receive all in love. Every person. Every circumstance. Everything.
There are three areas of life in which the Holy Family has much to teach us. Those areas are love, poverty, and prayer.
Love That Doesn’t Count the Cost
The Holy Family teaches us how to love. Not the flippant “love” used to appreciate objects or instances. Not the worldly “love” that cherishes one day and disdains the next. They teach us the kind of love that bleeds directly from the depths of our hearts and makes us vulnerable, exposing us to the potential of the most extravagant joy and the most painful sorrow.
It is a love that the current culture struggles to understand. It doesn’t allow us to hide or self-protect; it cannot be contained, but must be poured out daringly.
What is this love?
It is the love of Jesus, the love that flowed without abandon within the Holy Family. We are called to this love, but are often afraid to embrace it because it is a love that is real in an increasingly artificial world. To allow this love to take refuge in our hearts, we must turn to the Holy Family. They loved without counting the cost.
Poverty Offered to the Lord
We all suffer from poverty of some sort: material poverty, poverty of spirit, poverty of friendship and community. All of us have an ache, a longing, an area we attempt to fill with things that will not satisfy. The reality of our poverty scares us, tempting us to cower beneath the false shelter of sin, addictions, and distractions.
The Holy Family lived in complete union with God. All was from Him and all was offered back to Him in total trust. Our Lord desires every part of us, including our places of poverty. When we allow the false shelters to collapse, and we bring ourselves bare and suffering before the Lord, the riches of His grace spill into our souls like spun gold, illuminating all the dark places and giving us the strength to bend, to be purified, to be set free.
Prayer That is as Frequent as Our Breath
I imagine that every single breath taken by the Holy Family was a prayer. We often struggle with integrating prayer into our lives. We falter, we question, we repent. Our prayer lives waver from a rushing river, to a drying river, to a trickling stream, all trying to reach the ocean. In each, your beloved Lord beholds you with complete love; you are a delight to Him.
Your prayer life is a unique dance. There are ways in which you encounter the Lord that are beautifully distinct to your soul and your sanctification. Make every breath a prayer by offering it at the start of your day. Recollect yourself to His constant gaze upon you as you go about your daily duties: the drive to work, the line at the grocery store, the messes, the meals. Give it all to Him.
Receiving Each Moment in Love
In every season—whether marked by abundance or lack, joy or exhaustion—the Holy Family encourages us to receive each moment in love. They remind us that holiness is born not from ease, but from fidelity; not from having everything in order, but from offering everything—joys, wounds, and uncertainties—to the Lord. As we learn to love, to accept our poverty, and to pray with trust, the Holy Family guides us quietly toward a deeper peace, one that can take root even in the most imperfect circumstances.
Leana Bowler is a wife and mother of five little ones. She is a Holy Rosary enthusiast with deep devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Her love for the message of Divine Mercy led her to become a Marian Missionary of Divine Mercy. She enjoys the miracles of family life, strong coffee, and encountering others on this journey to sainthood. She was a contributing author to And Hay Became Holy and Made New: 52 Devotions for Catholic Women.
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