Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
This weekend, the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s, the Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
The Book of Sirach supplies the first reading. Sirach was composed to reinforce trust in and loyalty to the revelation of God. When Sirach was written, Jews were beset by attacks upon their beliefs that came from a prevailing hostile and pagan culture. Allurements to abandon old beliefs were everywhere. After all, those persons who lived the good life were pagans.
In particular, the Jewish concept of the holiness of the home and of marriage was threatened. In many pagan settings, love was absent, or at best coincidental, in many homes and in most marriages.
Sirach affirmed that first and foremost love for God must be in the lives of families. If this love exists, all else that is good falls into place. Spouses love each other. Parents love their children. Children love their parents. Love is positive, active and productive in all things. One spouse thinks of the other. Parents think of the children. Children imitate parents. The cycle is wonderful in its unfolding of peace, strength and genuine growth.
For its second reading, the Church presents a passage from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians. The Church in Colossae arose within the cultural context of the Roman Empire, one that was anything but friendly to Christians, or even tolerant of them.
Women, wives or daughters, were little higher than livestock. Marriage existed in Roman society, but women did not choose their husbands. Fathers sold their daughters to men to be their wives in many cases.
Wives were human instruments to provide offspring and to be outlets for their husband’s natural desires.
It disgusted Christians. Paul in this passage elevates women, as Jesus elevated them. Women were not objects, but persons. Christian women had holy vocations to fulfill.
To assume from this reading that early Christianity belittled women, or accepted conditions that suppressed or even hurt women, is totally unfounded.
St. Luke’s Gospel provides the last reading. It is a story unique to Luke. As is stated in this story, Jesus was a boy of 12, on the doorstep of adolescence. He was with Mary and Joseph in Jerusalem to celebrate of Passover.
When Mary and Joseph were returning home to Nazareth, they realized that Jesus was missing. They anxiously returned to Jerusalem to look for him. He was in the temple discoursing with the scholars, who were amazed at his marvelous knowledge.
He cited the messianic mission when questioned by Mary. He was born as her son for one purpose, to accomplish the plan of God.
Reflection
On this feast, the Church builds upon the family life so evident at Christmas.
A great lesson to learn from the Holy Family’s example is the utter commitment of Jesus, Mary and Joseph to God.
British royalty fascinates Americans, but the great European royal romance of the last century was not British. It involved Crown Prince Leopold of Belgium, a Catholic, the future King Leopold III, and Princess Astrid of Sweden, a Lutheran, niece of the Swedish king.
At the time, Belgium was intensely Catholic. Many Belgians wanted no Protestant in their royal family, let alone a Protestant queen one day, but love prevailed. The couple were married. Astrid resolved to keep her religion. Leopold kept his.
Astrid watched Leopold’s devotion to daily Mass and holy Communion. She noted his sense of duty as a father as he himself taught their children to pray.
His fervent Catholicism made Astrid think. She was received into the full communion of the Church.
(Leopold and Astrid were grandparents of the present Belgian monarch, a practicing Catholic.)
The primary responsibility of spouses, and parents is to inspire their families to remember God first and foremost. †