Preaching for the Feast of the Holy Family, Lisa Fullam offers a reflection on nurturing our own holy family:

"Family is a spiritual thing, a gift of God. As we live into those close relationships in our lives we should find ourselves growing in kindness, bending when people need bending with, forgiving when people need forgiving. We will be imperfect. We will make mistakes—we are still human, after all. So likewise, our holy family members will grow in kindness in return, bend with us when we need it, forgive us when we need it, and join us in our work for justice. THAT’S what family means, at least for Jesus and his mother, and all the members of Jesus’ chosen family, and for us as members of Jesus’ chosen family."

Lisa Fullam D.V.M., Th.D. is professor emerita of moral theology from the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and associate veterinarian at New Baltimore Animal Hospital in West Coxsackie, NY. After veterinary studies at Cornell, she earned a doctorate in Christian ethics from Harvard Divinity School. After 19 years at JST-SCU, she and her husband John R. Mabry packed up their house and their boxer dogs and headed to the upper Hudson Valley in NY where she resumed veterinary practice.

Visit www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/12312023 to learn more about Dr. Fullam, to read her preaching text, and for more preaching from Catholic women.