Adapted from Mother's Manual, by A. Francis Comes, S.J.,
William J. Hirten Co., Inc., 1984)
From the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy
The Feast of the Holy Family 112.
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(120);
the blessing of children as provided in the ritual(121); 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(122).
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(123); frequent prayers to entrust themselves
to the patronage of the Holy Family and to obtain assistance
at the hour of death(124). From the Catechism of the Catholic Church 533
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. 534
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. -
O God, who were pleased to give us the shining example of the Holy Family, graciously grant that we may imitate them in practicing the virtues of family life and in the bonds of charity, and so, in the joy of your house, delight one day in eternal rewards. 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+
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`I am but a star in the heavens above
guiding over you in God's eternal love
I once was a soul like you on earth now
a heavenly star in miracle of rebirth..
'in celebration of eternal life ~ 08/03/1972
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