As we grow older and prepare for our transition from this life into the next, we often find ourselves wondering about the legacy we will leave our family and the world.  Will it be a list of successful accomplishments?  Will it be various donations made to charitable organizations or a trust fund or foundation that has been set up to help others in need?  Perhaps our legacy will be a monetary inheritance left to family members or friends.  Whatever the legacy may be, it is meant to benefit future generations and motivate them to carry on our convictions.  It often also helps the beneficiary have greater faith in themselves and their efforts.

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family, and the readings are about all of this: family, faith and legacy.  Abraham, concerned about an heir, has a heart-to-heart talk with God about his and Sarah’s childlessness.  We all know the story of Abraham, the father of our faith.  We remember how God had called him to leave his homeland and go to a land that God would show him.  In return, God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation.  But, there was a little problem.  Abraham and his wife, Sarah were elderly, well beyond child-bearing years.  As we hear in today’s first reading, God quells Abraham’s anxiety by promising him an heir.  He and Sarah will have a son.  In fact, Abraham’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky; what a marvelous legacy!   Abraham responds by putting his faith in God and God fulfills his divine promise.  Sarah bears a son, Isaac.  Abraham now has an heir, and he and Sarah now have not only a family but also an impressive legacy – a child born out of the faith that Abraham had put in God and the one who would inherit the promises God had made to Abraham.

In our second reading to the Hebrews, we hear a summary recounting of the three important moments in Abraham’s life: his call to leave his homeland, his generation of descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands on the seashore, and his response to God’s call to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  In this letter to the Hebrews, the author teaches his audience about the great theological virtue of faith and how it led Abraham to be able to leave a great legacy: generations of faithful followers of his God – that includes us today.

Our Gospel reading today also focuses on family, faith and legacy.  This young family of Joseph and Mary take their infant Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to God in the Temple in accordance with the law given to Moses.  Strong in their faith, Joseph and Mary carefully observe the law that God had given them.  In the Temple, the family meets Simeon who was divinely promised that he would not die until he had seen the Christ of the Lord.  With faith in God and God’s promise, Simeon waits.  To his delight, he not only sees the Christ – that is, the anointed – of the Lord, but is able to take him into his loving arms.  Simeon had put his faith in God and God’s promise to Simeon is fulfilled.  The Holy Family also encounters Anna, a devout prophetess.  Both she and Simeon speak about the child and his future mission.  Joseph and Mary’s family legacy would be to have a son who will bring hope to a world awaiting redemption.

Yes, all three readings center on family, faith and legacy.  Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and Mary, Simeon and Anna were all people of deep faith.  All received divine promises that God fulfilled in response to their faith in him.  These readings invite us to believe wholeheartedly in the One whose word and promises are true, to think about our families and to reflect on the legacy we want to leave them and the world.  As we prepare to begin a New Year in God’s grace, I pray that all of us will renew our faith in our God who always fulfills his promises and that we will make sure that our legacy is worthy of God’s great design for us.