Fr. Adolph Guy
As our eyes are focused on the child Jesus in the crib, there is a man and a woman surrounding him and glazing at him. The Holy Scriptures and the Tradition tell us that these are the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, her spouse and together with the child Jesus, the three built up the Holy Family of Nazareth, the archetype of the Christian family and the Solemnity we celebrate the following Sunday of Christmas. My sharing has been inspired by Gratissimam Sane of saint John Paul II, published in year of the family 1994.
It is a bit challenging to discuss about the family while taking into consideration different waves of positive and negative reactions that Fiducia Supplicans has brought about within and outside of the Church. However, traditionally, a family stems from the union of a man and a woman (Gratissimam Sane n.6). Taken like this, a “person normally comes into the world within a family, and can be said to owe to the family the very fact of his existing as an individual.” At the same time, it is from the family that a person goes forth “in order to realize in a new family unit his particular vocation in life.” The same holds true for the Holy Family of Nazareth:
“Born of Mary the Virgin, he truly became one of us and, except for sin, was like us in every respect.” If in fact Christ “fully discloses man to himself”, he does so beginning with the family in which he chose to be born and to grow up. We know that the Redeemer spent most of his life in the obscurity of Nazareth, “obedient” (LK 2: 51) as the “Son of Man” to Mary his Mother, and to Joseph the carpenter (Gratissimam Sane n. 2).”
At the first sight, the family of the Lord Jesus looks like an ordinary family while, in reality, it is Holy. Can your own family, your home or your married life be called holy? Many factors drive away holiness from various families, to name but just few: poverty and financial difficulties, permanent absence of fathers from their homes for a reason or the other, extra-marital affaires, different forms of addictions and the likes.
The holiness of the family of the Lord Jesus lies in the choice of God to be born and to grow up in a human family and both, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph “cooperated with the Lord’s plan of salvation” inasmuch as they were “fully engaged in the desire to do the will of God.” For instance, Saint Matthew (Mt 2:13) reports to us Saint Joseph’s obedience to God’s order to take child Jesus and his mother to Egypt to spare the child from the sword of Herod. The Blessed Virgin’s ‘fiat’ (Lk 1:38) and all that followed later witnessed of her acceptance of God’s will and her active collaboration to it.
The dwelling of holiness in the family of Nazareth made it to stand out as the model of conjugal love due to human values it promotes. These values are important contribution to any human society: collaboration, sacrifice, and entrustment to divine providence, hard work, and solidarity. In the light of this, families nowadays need to confront themselves to this Holy Family of Nazareth so that they may be inspired by the Family of the Lord and work hard to resemble it.[1]
Finally, may the Holy Family, icon and model of every human family help each family unit to grow in understanding of its particular mission. May Mary, Mother of ‘Fairest Love’, and Joseph, Guardian of the Redeemer, accompany us all with their constant protection (Gratissimam Sane n.23).
[1] Pope Benedict XVI, The Feast of the Holy Family (Holy Days, Meditations on the Feasts, Fasts, and Other Solemnities of the Church) 2012.
As our eyes are focused on the child Jesus in the crib, there is a man and a woman surrounding him and glazing at him. The Holy Scriptures and the Tradition tell us that these are the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, her spouse and together with the child Jesus, the three built up the Holy Family of Nazareth, the archetype of the Christian family and the Solemnity we celebrate the following Sunday of Christmas. My sharing has been inspired by Gratissimam Sane of saint John Paul II, published in year of the family 1994.
It is a bit challenging to discuss about the family while taking into consideration different waves of positive and negative reactions that Fiducia Supplicans has brought about within and outside of the Church. However, traditionally, a family stems from the union of a man and a woman (Gratissimam Sane n.6). Taken like this, a “person normally comes into the world within a family, and can be said to owe to the family the very fact of his existing as an individual.” At the same time, it is from the family that a person goes forth “in order to realize in a new family unit his particular vocation in life.” The same holds true for the Holy Family of Nazareth:
“Born of Mary the Virgin, he truly became one of us and, except for sin, was like us in every respect.” If in fact Christ “fully discloses man to himself”, he does so beginning with the family in which he chose to be born and to grow up. We know that the Redeemer spent most of his life in the obscurity of Nazareth, “obedient” (LK 2: 51) as the “Son of Man” to Mary his Mother, and to Joseph the carpenter (Gratissimam Sane n. 2).”
At the first sight, the family of the Lord Jesus looks like an ordinary family while, in reality, it is Holy. Can your own family, your home or your married life be called holy? Many factors drive away holiness from various families, to name but just few: poverty and financial difficulties, permanent absence of fathers from their homes for a reason or the other, extra-marital affaires, different forms of addictions and the likes.
The holiness of the family of the Lord Jesus lies in the choice of God to be born and to grow up in a human family and both, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph “cooperated with the Lord’s plan of salvation” inasmuch as they were “fully engaged in the desire to do the will of God.” For instance, Saint Matthew (Mt 2:13) reports to us Saint Joseph’s obedience to God’s order to take child Jesus and his mother to Egypt to spare the child from the sword of Herod. The Blessed Virgin’s ‘fiat’ (Lk 1:38) and all that followed later witnessed of her acceptance of God’s will and her active collaboration to it.
The dwelling of holiness in the family of Nazareth made it to stand out as the model of conjugal love due to human values it promotes. These values are important contribution to any human society: collaboration, sacrifice, and entrustment to divine providence, hard work, and solidarity. In the light of this, families nowadays need to confront themselves to this Holy Family of Nazareth so that they may be inspired by the Family of the Lord and work hard to resemble it.[1]
Finally, may the Holy Family, icon and model of every human family help each family unit to grow in understanding of its particular mission. May Mary, Mother of ‘Fairest Love’, and Joseph, Guardian of the Redeemer, accompany us all with their constant protection (Gratissimam Sane n.23).
[1] Pope Benedict XVI, The Feast of the Holy Family (Holy Days, Meditations on the Feasts, Fasts, and Other Solemnities of the Church) 2012.