Father, help us to live as a holy family, united in
respect and love. Bring us to the joy and peace of your eternal home.from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The
hidden life at Nazareth allows everyone to enter into fellowship with Jesus by
the most ordinary events of daily life:
The home of Nazareth is the school
where we begin to understand the life of Jesus - the school of the Gospel.
First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and
indispensable condition of mind, revive in us. . . A lesson on family life. May
Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and
simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character... A lesson of work.
Nazareth, home of the "Carpenter's Son", in you I would choose to
understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work. . . To
conclude, I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their
great pattern their brother who is God.
The finding of Jesus in the temple
is the only event that breaks the silence of the Gospels about the hidden years
of Jesus. Here Jesus lets us catch a glimpse of the mystery of his total
consecration to a mission that flows from his divine sonship: "Did you not
know that I must be about my Father's work?" Mary and Joseph did not
understand these words, but they accepted them in faith. Mary "kept all
these things in her heart" during the years Jesus remained hidden in the
silence of an ordinary life. (533-534)
from the Directory of Popular Piety and the Liturgy on the Feast of the Holy Family
The feast of the holy family of Jesus, Mary and
Joseph (Sunday in the Christmas octave) is a festive occasion particularly
suitable for the celebration of rites or moments of prayer proper to the
Christian family. The recollection of Joseph, Mary and Jesus' going up to
Jerusalem, together with other observant Jewish families, for the celebration
of the Passover (cf. Lk 2:41-42), should normally encourage a positive
acceptance of the pastoral suggestion that all members of the family attend
Mass on this day. This feast day also affords an opportunity for the renewal of
our entrustment to the patronage of the Holy Family of Nazareth; the
blessing of children as provided in the ritual; and where opportune, for
the renewal of marriage vows taken by the spouses on their wedding day, and
also for the exchange of promises between those engaged to be married in which
they formalize their desire to found a new Christian family.
Outside of
the feast, the faithful have frequent recourse to the Holy Family of Nazareth
in many of life's circumstances: joining the Association of the Holy Family so
as to model their own families on the Holy Family of Nazareth; frequent
prayers to entrust themselves to the patronage of the Holy Family and to obtain
assistance at the hour of death. (112)
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