Feast of the Holy Family, Year C

PAPAL MESSAGESTHIS WEEKMONTHLY INTENTIONS

Pope Francis

March 13, 2013 – Present

DECEMBER 30, 2018

Astonishment and Anxiety

Astonishment — they “were astonished” — and anxiety — “your father and I, anxious” — are the two elements to which I would like to call your attention: astonishment and anxiety.

That anxiety that they experienced in the three days that Jesus was missing should also be our anxiety when we are distant from him, when we are distant from Jesus. We should feel anxious when we forget Jesus for more than three days, without praying, without reading the Gospel, without feeling the need of his presence and of his comforting friendship. And many times, days pass in which I do not remember Jesus. But this is bad, this is really bad. We should feel anxious when these things happen. Mary and Joseph searched for him and found him in the temple while he was teaching: for us too, it is especially in the house of God that we are able to encounter the divine Teacher and receive his message of salvation. In the Eucharistic celebration we have a living experience of Christ; he speaks to us; he offers us his Word; he illuminates us, lights our path, gives us his Body in the Eucharist from which we draw vigour to face everyday difficulties.

DECEMBER 27, 2015

The Light of Hope that Comes from the Home

If the door of the family is not open to the presence of God and to his love, then the family loses its harmony, individualism prevails, and joy is extinguished.

Today’s Gospel passage invites families to welcome the light of hope that comes from the home of Nazareth, in which Jesus’ childhood unfolded in joy. Jesus, says St Luke, “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man” (2:52). The nuclear family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is for each believer and especially for families an authentic school of the Gospel. Here we admire the fulfilment of the divine plan to make of the family a special community of life and love. Here we learn that every Christian nuclear family is called to be a “domestic church”, to make the Gospel virtues shine and become a leaven of good in society. The classic traits of the Holy Family are: reflection and prayer, mutual understanding and respect, and a spirit of sacrifice, work and solidarity.

Feast of the Holy Family, Year C

Pope Benedict XVI

April 19, 2005 – February 28, 2013

DECEMBER 30, 2012

Mary and Joseph’s Anxiety

The silence of Joseph, a just man (cf. Mt 1:19), and the example of Mary who kept all these things in her heart (cf. Lk 2:51), usher us into the mystery of the Holy Family, full of faith and humanity.

Today Jesus is once again in the Temple, but this time he has a different role, which involves him in the first person. He makes the pilgrimage, with Mary and Joseph, to Jerusalem as prescribed by the Law (cf. Ex 23:17, 34:23 ff) even though he was not yet in his thirteenth year: a sign of the Holy Family’s deep devotion. Yet, when his parents set out on their return to Nazareth, something unexpected happens. Without saying a word Jesus remains in the city. Mary and Joseph search for him for three days and find him in the Temple, conversing with the teachers of the Law (Lk 2: 46, 47); and when they ask him for an explanation, Jesus answers that they should not be surprised since this is his place, the house of his Father, who is God (The Infancy Narratives, p. 123). “He”, Origen writes, “professes to be in the temple of his Father, the Father who has revealed himself to us and whose Son he says he is” (Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, 18, 5).

DECEMBER 27, 2009

Educating Children in the Greatest of Freedom

Let us ask ourselves: from whom did Jesus learn love for his Father’s affairs?

We may therefore say that Jesus’ decision to stay on at the Temple was above all the result of his close relationship with the Father, but it was also a result of the education he had received from Mary and Joseph. Here we can glimpse the authentic meaning of Christian education: it is the fruit of a collaboration between educators and God that must always be sought. The Christian family is aware that children are a gift and a project of God. Therefore it cannot consider that it possesses them; rather, in serving God’s plan through them, the family is called to educate them in the greatest freedom, which is precisely that of saying “yes” to God in order to do his will. The Virgin Mary is the perfect example of this “yes”. Let us entrust all families to her, praying in particular for their precious educational mission.

DECEMBER 31, 2006

The Vocation of the Family

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.

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.

Feast of the Holy Family, Year C

Pope Saint John Paul II

October 16, 1978 – April 2, 2005

DECEMBER 28, 2003

The Gospel of the Family

At the school of Nazareth every family learns to be a workshop of love, unity and openness to life.

In our day a misunderstood sense of rights sometimes troubles the very nature of the family institution and of the conjugal bond. People who believe in the importance of the family based on marriage should join forces at all levels. The family is a human and divine reality that should be defended and promoted as a fundamental social good. Christians, the Second Vatican Council recalls, attentive to the signs of the times, should actively “promote the values of marriage and the family, both by the example of their own lives and by cooperation with other men and women of good will” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 52). We must proclaim the Gospel of the family with joy and courage. To this end, let us raise our common prayer to Jesus, Mary and Joseph for all families, and for those in material and spiritual difficulty in particular.

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DECEMBER 21, 1978

The Holiness of Every Human Family

The deepest human problems are connected with the family.

The Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, that is, the present Sunday, unites, in the liturgy, the solemn memory of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The birth of a child always gives rise to a family. The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem gave rise to this unique and exceptional Family in the history of mankind. In this Family there came into the world, grew and was brought up the Son of God, conceived and born of the Virgin-Mother, and at the same time entrusted, from the beginning, to the truly fatherly care of Joseph. The latter, a carpenter of Nazareth, who vis-à-vis Jewish law was Mary’s husband, and vis-à-vis the Holy Spirit was her worthy spouse and the guardian, really in a fatherly way, of the maternal mystery of his Bride.

The family of Nazareth, which the Church, especially in today’s liturgy, puts before the eyes of all families, really constitutes that culminating point of reference for the holiness of every human family. The history of this Family is described very concisely in the pages of the Gospel. We get to know only a few events in its life. However what we learn is sufficient to be able to involve the fundamental moments in the life of every family, and to show that dimension, to which all men who live a family life are called: fathers, mothers, parents, children, The Gospel shows us, very clearly, the educative aspect of the family. “He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them” (Lk 2:51).

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The Homilies of Pope Francis (The Catholic Register)

Pope Francis Homilies

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