In the footsteps of the holy family of Nazareth The feast of the holy family is a feast of every Christian family. The liturgy invites us to model our families according to the example of the holy family of Nazareth. All of us are born and brought up in a family. On this feast of the holy family we shall try to reflect on the significance and mission of the Christian family. Father, mother and children make up a family. Each individual of the family is a valued, loved and respected person. The perfection of family life is seen in the holy family of Nazareth. In this family we find, Joseph ever attentive to listen to the voice of God, Mary ever ready to do God’s will and the Son Jesus ever obedient to his parents. It was a communion of different persons. Do our families live in communion or just live together because of necessity? The basic foundations on which families are built are love and life. Each member of the family enhances other members of the family with love. God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit share their love and life with the whole of creation, particularly with the human beings. Jesus shared this love and life with His own family of Nazareth, with Joseph and Mary and with the whole of humanity. How much of life and love do I breathe into my own family? The family is a domestic Church. It represents the Church at the family level. The most important thing that a family requires is family prayer. As we have heard many times, ‘a family that prays together lives together’. It gets strength and nutrition to live only in and through prayer. Do I enter my home as if entering a Church? Prayer: Jesus you lived in your family at Nazareth visit my family today to make it your own. It should never be forgotten that prayer constitutes an essential part of Christian life, understood in its fullness and centrality. Indeed, prayer is an important part of our very humanity: it is the first expression of mans inner truth, the first condition for authentic freedom of spirit. Far from being a form of escapism from everyday commitments, prayer constitutes the strongest incentive for the Christian family to assume and comply fully with all its responsibilities as the primary and fundamental cell of human society. Thus the Christian familys actual participation in the Churchs life and mission is in direct proportion to the fidelity and intensity of the prayer with which it is united with the fruitful vine that is Christ the Lord. - St. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio (On the role of the Christian Family in the Modern World)- 62.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 18:11:06 +0000
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