Holy Family Reflection

      Here is my "lectio" reflection for the Gospel of Luke [Luke 2:41-52] for the Feast of the Holy Family, today, December 26th aired yesterday on WAOB radio.

     In the gospel account for this Feast of the Holy Family we jump from the babe in the manger to the twelve year old young man of faith on a pilgrimage ... from the little town of Bethlehem to Nazareth and then to Jerusalem.

     In both, we celebrate an event worth more than any word or proclamation: the fact that God wanted to be born and grow in a human family.  In this way he set the family apart as the first and ordinary way that he would encounter humanity ... and that we would find and encounter him.

     In the life he spent in Nazareth, Jesus honored Mary and Joseph, remaining subject to their authority throughout his childhood and adolescent years.   He showed us the primary value of the family in the education and growth of a person.  The question we must ask ourselves: Have we honored our parents by our lives?

     In this account we see that Jesus learned many things from Mary and Joseph in the family setting.   One was the making of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship at the temple.

    That pilgrimage and all that it represented in the life and spiritual journey of this holy family revealed a major component of a family of faith - to accompany each member of the family in the journey to discover God and the plan that he has for us.

     Mary and Joseph educated Jesus by their example.   He knew all the beauty of faith, of love for God and for his law, as well as the demands of justice which finds its fullest expression in love.  He learned to do the will of God and develop the spiritual bonds that are life-giving.

     The Christian family in its fullest expression finds itself blessed by a covenant of love enriched by the Sacrament of Marriage and nourished by the Word and the Eucharist.   That Christian family is called to realize the great vocation and mission of being "a living cell" of society and the Church, a sign and instrument of unity for the whole human race.

     The Holy Family is to be "a model of life" for every family, because Jesus, true God and true man, wanted to be born into a human family, and in doing so blessed and consecrated family life.

    Let us ask Mary most holy and blessed Joseph to love and protect every family.   May they support us so that we may be able to resist the forces that disrupt family life.   May Jesus the Savior, Mary our Mother and Joseph, patron of the Universal Church help Christian families to be, in every part of the world, a living image of God's love. 

CHRISTMAS 2021

THE CHRISTMAS PROCLAMATION

This proclamation is chanted on December 24 before the beginning of Midnight Mass.  It is taken from the Roman Martyrology.

The Twenty-fifth Day of December, 

when ages beyond number

had run their course from the creation of the world,

when God in the beginning created heaven and earth

and formed man in his own likeness;

when century upon century had passed

since the Almighty set his bow

     in the clouds after the Great Flood,

as a sign of covenant and peace;

in the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith,

came out of the Ur of the Chaldees;

in the thirteenth century since the People of Israel 

were led by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt;

around the thousandth year since David was anointed King;

in the sixty-fifth week of the prophecy of Daniel;

in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;

in the year seven hundred and fifty-two

     since the foundation of the City of Rome;

in the forty-second year of the reign of 

     Caesar Octavian Augustus;

the whole world being at peace,

JESUS CHRIST, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

desiring to consecrate the world by his most loving presence,

was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

and when nine months had passed since his conception,

was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah,

and was made man:

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.