Holy Family
The Feast of the Holy Family, which feast we celebrate today, commemorates the Holiest Family. That is, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. But, as always, there’s more to it. The name of the feast also reminds us that “the family” in general (father, mother, and children) is itself “holy.” It is, in fact, a gift of God.
By the way, I should mention that the Holy Family is a movable feast. It is always on the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas. It therefore supersedes whatever saint we would otherwise be celebrating on that day. The principal feast on December 29th is usually St. Thomas Becket. St. Thomas’ death for refusing to yield to the dictates of the state has some resonance for us today.
You can read my previous post on the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury here:
But let’s return to the Holy Family. St. Paul underscores the sanctity of the family, qua family, in his letter to the Ephesians:
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-32)
Alarming Trends
Today’s feast, much like the Solemnity of Christ the King, is a fairly new addition to the liturgical calendar. Informal devotion to the Holy Family goes back centuries. The formal feast, however, did not join the ranks of official observances until 1921. Pope Pius XI established it in response to increasing threats to the integrity of the traditional family. The trends that already looked alarming a century ago have now grown and metastasized. Our great grandparents would not believe by what is now commonplace. The family as traditionally understood is tottering under open and sustained attack.
It is in this regard that we see an interesting connection to Yesterday’s Feast of the Holy Innocents. We commemorated King Herod’s slaughter of all the male children up to two years old in Bethlehem. This after the Magi told him that the Messiah had recently been born there. The two different feasts, in fact, are really different sides of the same coin. The Holy Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus is a model of God’s plan for the family. The slaughter of the Holy Innocents starkly underscores how far we fall short of that model. Not only two thousand years ago, but right now (need I mention state sanctioned abortion?)
The Holy Family in Action
It is likewise noteworthy that one of the few places in Scripture where we see the Holy Family in action is the same passage from Matthew’s Gospel that describes the Holy Innocents:
And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they [the Magi] departed to their own country by another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.
This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men. (Matthew 2:12 -16)
A Crisis of Fatherhood
Joseph, like fathers and fatherhood itself today (and the crisis of the family is, to a great degree, a crisis of fatherhood), is often overlooked and forgotten. We know from Matthew’s Gospel, however, that God saw to it that his son would have a human father when he was born (see Matthew 1:18-25). In the passage from Luke above he is clearly the leader of the family. Like his Old Testament namesake, and the Wise Men from the East, he finds a warning in a dream. Then he takes action: he has the vision to guide and protect his family.
Our separated brethren in the Protestant communities have sometimes distrusted our devotion to the earthly parents of Jesus. They fear it might distract us from the Savior Himself. Nonetheless, many are coming to a new appreciation of the example of St. Joseph. A few years ago I ran across the following quote from Russell Moore. At the time he was president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is now editor in chief of Christianity Today. Moore said:
For several years, I’ve been convinced that the model we most need in this day is that of Joseph of Nazareth. In a day when fathers are seen as expendable, we should look at Joseph, who sacrificed his own future for his wife and child. In a world filled with orphans in need of families, we should look at the example of this adopting father who poured out himself to become a father to one who was of no biological relation to him.
Pray for Intercession
The family in our day and age is badly in need of guidance and protection. On this Feast of the Holy Family, we would do well to pray for the intercession of the head and guardian of that Family. Let us ask he pray for our own families, and the institution of the family throughout the world.
Featured image top of page: The Holy Family, by Benedetto Gennari the Younger, 1682
Music for Christmas & The Holy Family:
“Once in Royal David’s City,” from the Hunter Street Baptist Church (with a charming introduction from the Gospel of Luke)
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