Sacred Heart Parish

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HOLY FAMILY (C)

  1. Each year on the Sunday after Christmas Day, we who accept the Lord at Chrismastime have the opportunity to reflect on the family. Folks are asking a number of questions these days – What is the family? Who invented the family? Who has the authority to define the nature of the family? Many people in our day do not understand the deep truths the Church emphasizes about marriage and the family: that marriage centers on a man and a woman entering into a new partnership with the Holy Spirit; that this partnership lasts until the death of one of the spouses; that this partnership is one of life and love involving a generous response to their vocation of marriage, with regard to the conception and birth of children and the children’s physical, emotional, moral and religious upbringing until the children’s roots give way to wings. A man and woman united in marriage together with their children form a family. This institution is prior to any recognition by public authority which has the obligation to recognize it. The Church, of course, is interested in the Christian family which is a communion of persons patterned after the communion of divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystery of the Trinity. The Christian family has often been called the “domestic church” for it is a community of faith, hope and love.

  1. Pope Paul VI made a visit to Nazareth in 1964. He was asking – what does Nazareth teach us? First of all, we can learn from the silence of Nazareth. Given the phenomena of radio and television and the insatiable demands for news and entertainment characteristic of our times, can we not learn the great value of silence which teaches us to meditate in peace and quiet? It helps us in prayer, in seeking a well-ordered personal spiritual life.

  1. A second lesson from Nazareth focuses on it being a model of what the family should be. The family at Nazareth exemplifies a basic function that any family must carry out in society, that is, being a community of love and sharing, beautiful for the problems it poses and the rewards it brings, a perfect setting for rearing children – and for this there is no substitute.
    Jesus’ family in Nazareth could be described as the home of a craftsman’s son, where the child Jesus learned about work and its discipline and its value. It highlights what many in our society do not really enjoy – the dignity of work, a dignity deriving not only from its place in the economic system but from the purpose it serves. (The full text of Pope Paul’s talk at Nazareth can be found in the Roman Breviary in the Office of January 1.)

  1. Nazareth makes us very much aware of the meaning of Christmas which is a wondrous exchange between God and ourselves. As one of our Feast of Our Lady, Mother of God, January 1 antiphons will say to us: “O marvelous exchange! Man’s Creator has become man, born of a virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”