By Megan Erbacher, The Message editor
On Dec. 28, 2025, the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Bishop Joseph M. Siegel celebrated a closing Mass for the Jubilee Year 2025 at St. Benedict Cathedral in Evansville.
On this Feast of the Holy Family, Bishop Siegel said the Church invites us to continue to reflect on the Christmas story and to picture, for ourselves, the life shared by Jesus, Mary and Joseph; for it is the sacred vocation to marriage and family life that we celebrate on this feast.
And as we conclude this Jubilee Year of Hope, Bishop Siegel said we again look to the witness of the Holy Family of Nazareth, celebrating the wondrous mystery that God’s son not only assumed our humanity but was also of a family, the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. If there ever were parents who hoped and trusted in God, it was surely Mary and Joseph.
The late Pope Francis inaugurated the Holy Year on Dec. 24, 2024, by opening the Holy Door of the Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican. Then, on Dec. 29, 2024, the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Bishops in dioceses worldwide opened the Jubilee Year for their local churches. Pope Francis chose “Pilgrims of Hope” as the theme for the Holy Year 2025.
During his homily, Bishop Siegel spoke about the Holy Family and said to think of the hope and trust in God that Mary and Joseph needed to believe the angel’s messages to give birth in a stable and flee to Egypt. In fact, he noted that their hope and trust in God will be tested many times.
The scriptural accounts remind us that Jesus, Mary and Joseph experienced the full spectrum of human life with all its messiness, fear and uncertainty, Bishop Siegel said. Their holiness was not an absence of problems, he noted, but a testament to how they navigated these trials with faith and love, and unwavering trust in God.
They were a family that didn’t just talk about God, Bishop Siegel said; they lived their faith. They were obedient to the Jewish laws and customs, presenting Jesus in the temple and participating in pilgrimages, he noted, and they created a home in Nazareth. It was a sanctuary of quiet work, love and prayer, bishop explained, where Jesus grew up strong, filled with wisdom and the favor of God was upon him.
Bishop Siegel continued his homily and said this hidden life teaches us that holiness is often found not in grand public displays but in the everyday faithfulness of our homes. The church holds up the Holy Family not as an unattainable ideal, he said, but as a model and patron of our own families.
It is in the family, the domestic Church, that we first learn how to love and to be loved, the bishop said.
During this Holy Year, Bishop Siegel noted that the whole year has been an opportunity for all, including himself, to see ourselves, our families and loved ones as pilgrims of hope, journeying together in the Church towards the kingdom of God. When we see our lives in this way, he said, we live differently and find it in our hearts to love others, to create bonds of trust and understanding, to sympathize with the problems and challenges others are facing, to love and serve the poor and vulnerable, and to see the hand of God in everything we experience, including those many things in life we’d rather not encounter.
The Holy Family teaches all of us how to hope, Bishop Siegel said, as the Jubilee Year has challenged us to be pilgrims of hope. Let us ask for the grace to make our families places where faith is alive, he said, forgiveness is freely given and love flourishes.
As Bishop Siegel closed the local celebration of the Jubilee Year 2025, he said through the prayers of Mary, the mother of God, and St. Joseph, may Christ grant us the grace to continue to walk as pilgrims of hope, each and every day, living in our faith with joy and with joy in our homes and beyond.