Please read the passage before the commentary.
Who is the holy family? The Book of Sirach address the words of this first Reading to adults, not to children. You children are off the hook for this.
It is easy to honor strong and mighty parents whom can look after their children well. It is different and more difficult to honor parents in their weakness, in their old age, and in their feebleness.
We grow up somehow with the notion that children grow up, but parents will never change. When we see the older generation changing and becoming likely to die, perhaps soon, we tend to get angry over this, probably because when aging happens to our parents, it affects us personanlly and deeply. What changes parents have to make will mean change for ourselves. When the generation older than we passes away, we become the older generation and the next likely to die,
Sirach tells us to take care of parents when they are old even if their minds fail. Kindness to them will not be forgotten.
Young parents teach their children how to honor their parents by the way the Young parents treat their own parents. If you are blessed in having grand children for your parents, you are blessed with many opportunities to teach your kids respect in their families.
When you have to put your parents in assisted living or permanent care, when you have to take their car keys away, when you have to count out their daily meds, you are teaching your children how to respect and honor you. If your parents are a nuisance to you, you will probably someday be a nuisance to your own children.
This is the feast of the holy family. It is supposed to be your feast.amd that Jesus, Mary and Joseph.