Reflection for the Feast of the Holy Family, Sunday 27th December 2020

Today in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church is the Feast of the Holy Family. A reminder that the vast majority of Jesus's life is hidden to us. But what we do know is that his mother and earthly father are marked by a particular holiness. His mother of course was born without sin, and Joseph was an older man who had children by a previous marriage. (The brothers and sisters of Jesus referred to by the Gospel writers.) He too was known for his particular holiness, and had been chosen by the Holy Spirit to serve as Jesus's earthly father.

Our families play a unique role in our formation as human beings, for good or for ill. (I'm thinking in particular of Philip Larkin's poem 'This be the verse', which whilst caustic in language, shows us a particularly Freudian view of the early formation of the human character, and the role our parents play in that process.) For Jesus to have been in the house of such a holy couple is important. because they blessed him and he in turn blessed them.

There is something particularly sacramental about family life. At its best it reflects (albeit dimly) the inner life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At its worst it can leave us damaged for life, and we each bear within ourselves both the blessings our parents have given us, as well as the hurts and pains they might have caused us. But if our family life is sacramental, then how much more so was the life of the Holy Family, and how it serves as an exemplar of how our own family lives should be, filled with loving service and prayer.

The Church too is a family, albeit a dispersed one. Christ too is the head of that family, though he has given us the Pope, along with Bishops and Priests to lead his family in his name. Like our human families, the Church too can make mistakes, and whilst we try to be like the Holy Family, too often we fail. But we are called to persevere.

I want to end my short reflection with another from Pope St John Paul II: The example of Nazareth

The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin to understand the life of Jesus – the school of the Gospel.

    

The first lesson we learn here is to look, to listen, to meditate and penetrate the meaning – at once so deep and so mysterious – of this very simple, very humble and very beautiful manifestation of the Son of God. Perhaps we learn, even imperceptibly, the lesson of imitation.

    

Here we learn the method which will permit us to understand who Christ is. Here above all is made clear the importance of taking into account the general picture of his life among us, with its varied background of place, of time, of customs, of language, of religious practices – in fact, everything Jesus made use of to reveal himself to the world. Here everything is eloquent, all has a meaning.

    

Here, in this school, one learns why it is necessary to have a spiritual rule of life, if one wishes to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become a disciple of Christ.

    

How gladly would I become a child again, and go to school once more in this humble and sublime school of Nazareth: close to Mary, I wish I could make a fresh start at learning the true science of life and the higher wisdom of divine truths.

    

But I am only a passing pilgrim. I must renounce this desire to pursue in this home my still incomplete education in the understanding of the Gospel. I will not go on my way however without having gathered – hurriedly, it is true, and as if wanting to escape notice – some brief lessons from Nazareth.

    

First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us, besieged as we are by so many uplifted voices, the general noise and uproar, in our seething and over-sensitized modern life.

    

May the silence of Nazareth teach us recollection, inwardness, the disposition to listen to good inspirations and the teachings of true masters. May it teach us the need for and the value of preparation, of study, of meditation, of personal inner life, of the prayer which God alone sees in secret.

    

Next, there is 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. Let us learn from Nazareth that the formation received at home is gentle and irreplaceable. Let us learn the prime importance of the role of the family in the social order.

    

Finally, there is 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; here I would restore the awareness of the nobility of work; and reaffirm that work cannot be an end in itself, but that its freedom and its excellence derive, over and above its economic worth, from the value of those for whose sake it is undertaken. And here at Nazareth, to conclude, I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their great pattern, their brother who is God. He is the prophet of all their just causes, Christ our Lord.

________

Let us pray.

God our Father,

in the Holy Family of Nazareth

you have given us the true model of a Christian home.

Grant that by following Jesus, Mary and Joseph

in their love for each other and in the example of their family life,

we may come to your home of peace and joy.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.