The Feast of the Holy Family
Address in Nazareth and Familiaris consortio
On January 5, 1964, Pope Saint Paul VI visited Nazareth, in the Basilica of the Annunciation, where he delivered an address highlighting some aspects of the life of Jesus in that Galilean town. He noted this: “Nazareth is the school in which we begin to understand the life of Jesus. It is the school of the Gospel. Here we learn to observe, to listen, to meditate, and to penetrate the profound and mysterious meaning of that simple, humble, and lovely manifestation of the Son of God. And perhaps we learn almost imperceptibly to imitate Him.”
Here we learn the method by which we can come to understand Christ. Here we discover the need to observe the milieu of His sojourn among us – places, period of time, customs, language, religious practices, all of which Jesus used to reveal Himself to the world. Here everything speaks to us; everything has meaning. Everything possess twofold significance. The first is exterior… that which the spectators’ senses and perceptiveness can immediately derive from the Gospel scene…There is also an interior significance – that is, the revelation of divine truth, of supernatural reality.
We cannot depart without recalling briefly and fleetingly some fragments of the lesson of Nazareth. The lesson of silence…O silence of Nazareth, teach us recollection and interior life…of domestic life…May Nazareth teach us the meaning of family life, its harmony of love, its simplicity and austere beauty, its sacred and inviolable character; may it teach us how sweet and irreplaceable is its training, how fundamental and incomparable its role on the social plane. And at the very end, the saintly Pope said, “As we try to recapture some echo of the Master’s words, we seem to be won over as His disciples and to be genuinely filled with new wisdom and fresh courage.”
Seven years later, in the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio, another future saintly Pope, St. John Paul II said, “The family has vital and organic links with society, since it is its foundation and nourishes it continually through its role of service to life: it is from the family that citizens come to birth and it is within the family that they find the first school of the social virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself. Thus, far from being closed in on itself, the family is by nature and vocation open to other families and to society, and undertakes its social role” (FC, n. 42).
Prayer before an Image of the Holy Family
O most loving Jesus, Who by Your surpassing virtues and the example of Your home life hallowed the household in which You choose to live while on earth, mercifully look down upon this family, whose members, humbly prostrate before You, implore Your protection. Remember that we are bound and consecrated to You by a special devotion. Protect us in Your mercy, deliver us from danger, help us in our necessities, and impart to us strength to persevere always in the imitation of Your Holy Family, so that, by serving You and loving You faithfully during this mortal life, we may at length give You eternal praise in heaven. O Mary, dearest Mother, we implore Your assistance, knowing that Your divine Son will hearken to Your petition. Most glorious patriarch, St. Joseph, help us with Your powerful patronage, and place our petitions in Mary’s hands, that she may offer them to Jesus Christ. Amen
Nature and dignity 