Prayers for Family

Holy lives of inspiration  |  Learn more about our faith

Teaching the Faith - Weekday Homily Video

By: Father Charlie McCoy, C.S.C. March 18th, 2026

In the era before the Industrial Revolution, it was quite common for a son to learn a trade or a profession directly from his father. In fact, some of the medieval guilds, automatically accepted the son of a member into their ranks. Of course, this kind of dynamic played out explicitly in the life of Jesus. Joseph was a carpenter, and Jesus was known as both “the son of the carpenter” and as a carpenter himself. It’s beautiful to imagine a teenage or young adult Jesus and Joseph going out on jobs together or working with each other on projects at their home in Nazareth. What we hear in today’s Gospel is the wonderful notion that this father-son apprenticeship did not define only Jesus’ human life with St. Joseph. It is how Jesus understands his Divine life with the Father playing out in His mission to save the world. “Amen, amen, I say to you,” Jesus tells us, “the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also.” What a wonderful idea: that just as Jesus learned to shape wood and stone by seeing how Joseph crafted it, so, in some great, eternal mystery, the Son of God learns to love and save by seeing His Father in action. And just as we can imagine that Joseph held back no trade secrets from his adopted Son, so Jesus reveals the same to be true in the Divine trade school: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does.” And Jesus also makes clear that He is a good and faithful apprentice: “I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” Adopted Children of God As Christians, we have become adopted sons and daughters of God! And so, we are called to practice this same kind of apprenticeship. Now this can seem awfully daunting; we are not God’s eternal children, and, because of our sinfulness, we have trouble hearing His voice, seeing His actions, and understanding His ways. But the season of Lent itself provides ways to grow into this role more faithfully. Fasting most of all helps us to practice imitating Jesus in seeking not our own will, but the will of God in our lives. At first, this may seem like a strange idea. After all, isn’t fasting all about “will power”? Not exactly. If in our sacrifices, we’re trying to prove to ourselves or to God how tough we are, we’re really missing the point. Instead, we sacrifice good things, things our human will and natural desires push us towards, to practice telling God, “Not my will, but your will be done.” Our fasting, then, is really an act of surrender and a plea for His grace, rather than the product of our own iron will asceticism. Fasting is meant to help me build the habit of paying less attention to what I want, so that in prayer I can listen more sincerely to what God wants, and in charity I can be more likely to do it. Orienting Our Wills If all this sounds a little abstract or a little too spiritual, everyday life gives us some very down-to-earth ways to re-orient our wills. Married life probably gives husbands and wives the most powerful opportunities to make choices based not on their own will, but on the will of the beloved. And certainly, in the home, the relationship between parent and child can most naturally embody the relationship Jesus describes in today’s Gospel. For while not many parents are apprenticing their kids in a profession these days, all parents apprentice their children in the faith and in virtue. Parents are called to live and to guide so that their children, by seeing and obeying, can become their best selves in turn. Now this is an important part of the obedience and apprenticeship that Jesus envisions. Jesus proclaims that the Father bestows His own honor, judgment, and life-giving power to His obedient Son. Good master artisans do not keep their apprentices subservient, but empower them to become master artisans themselves. So it is in our homes: the mutual obedience between husbands and wives, and the obedience children show to their parents is not meant to keep anyone down or put them in their place. Rather, in our family life, God calls us to help one another grow into men and women who can exercise good judgment, give and receive honor, and offer life-giving love.