Saint Talk: Holy Family

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. Today's Gospel reading is the basis for the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary.  Instead of giving you my thoughts on the subject of the earthly trinity, I have included some excerpts from the writings of Pope Benedict XVI and Blessed Pope John Paul II.

In the Gospel we do not find discourses on the family but an event which is worth more than any words: God wanted to be born and to grow up in a human family. In this way he consecrated the family as the first and ordinary means of his encounter with humanity. 

In his life spent at Nazareth, Jesus honoured the Virgin Mary and the righteous Joseph, remaining under their authority throughout the period of his childhood and his adolescence (cf. Lk 2: 41-52). In this way he shed light on the primary value of the family in the education of the person.

This Gospel episode reveals the most authentic and profound vocation of the family: that is, to accompany each of its members on the path of the discovery of God and of the plan that he has prepared for him or her. 

Mary and Joseph taught Jesus primarily by their example: in his parents he came to know the full beauty of faith, of love for God and for his Law, as well as the demands of justice, which is totally fulfilled in love (cf. Rom 13: 10). 

From them he learned that it is necessary first of all to do God's will, and that the spiritual bond is worth more than the bond of kinship. 

The Holy Family of Nazareth is truly the "prototype" of every Christian family which, united in the Sacrament of Marriage and nourished by the Word and the Eucharist, is called to carry out the wonderful vocation and mission of being the living cell not only of society but also of the Church, a sign and instrument of unity for the entire human race. (Pope Benedict, Angelus, 12/21/06) 

Pope John Paul II repeatedly emphasized that "the future of the world and of the Church passes through the family." I particularly like what he had to the role of the father was in Familiaris Consortio:

In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God, a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family: He will perform this task by exercising generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother, by a more solicitous commitment to education, a task he shares with his wife, by work which is never a cause of division in the family but promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children into the living experience of Christ and the church.

Catechesis and evangelization starts at home with the family. This is our responsibility and not one we can delegate. We cannot simply dump our children off at the church on Sunday Youth Night or Wednesday CRE and think we have fulfilled our duty as parents. Certainly, formal religious ed has its place, but formation must take place at home. As a school teacher, I can tell you that children don't care so much about what you say as they care about what they see you do. Formation at home means we have to live our faith every day. An integral part of this includes family prayer. Father Peyton was on the mark when he coined the phrase: "The family that prays together, stays together."