Consider this thought: “If it’s a mistake to add the burden of the past to the weight of the present, it’s a worse mistake to burden the present with the future.”

I offer this thought because today is Holy Family Sunday, and many of you are parents, and parents have a tendency to worry—-whether you have younger kids, or older kids who are married and on their own.

The truth of the matter is that things rarely happen as we expect them to happen. And that truth applies to the way your children’s live can unfold. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are some situations where parents can start to blame themselves for decisions that their children make that might seem to go against everything you taught them. And there is so much more out there in the world to create confusion and uncertainty.

Sometimes parents are not able to provide the best environment for their children because of problems that the parents themselves have to deal with, or perhaps the exact opposite is the case, where you gave them everything they could ever need or want and still your children chose a path that wasn’t good for themselves.

Today is not a day where you are to evaluate your “performance” as a parent. And we are different people than we were many years ago. I would suggest that today is a day where you ask the new born Child in the manger to watch over your family. Today is a day to pray that there might be healing and forgiveness some day, it doesn’t have to be this minute. Ask the Lord to protect you family in the days ahead. If there is any regret in your heart for the things of the past, those are also the the things you place in the hands of Christ, and do your best to let go.

Let me leave you with another thought. I found this to be very helpful in my own life: “The things that have to be done must be done, and for the rest we must not allow ourselves to become overwhelmed with thousands of petty fears and worries, because the clinging to these things really say that we have no confidence in God. Everything will turn out all right.

So, what is our moral duty? To reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves—-more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our homes and in our troubled world.”

This is a good thought, I think, as we begin the new year 2018—peace in our heart, peace in our homes, peace in our world.