February is a month of special significance in the Catholic Church. It is dedicated to the Holy Family. It’s a time to reflect on the family life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, meditate on their virtues, and understand how they provide a model for Christian families.
February was chosen by the Church for this devotion, because in this month, we celebrate the Feast of the Purification, also known as the Feast of the Presentation. This occurs 40 days after the birth of Jesus, when Mary and Joseph, according to Jewish law, presented Jesus in the temple to Saint Simeon.
During February both honor the Holy Family and at the same time strengthen our own family life. After all, the Church has taught how the Holy Family is the model, the example, for all families. So said St. John Paul II in a 2001 Angelus address, as he called “the family of Nazareth a model for every home.”
“The Holy Family is the beginning of countless other holy families,” John Paul II said in his Letter to Families. He stressed, “The history of mankind and the history of salvation, passes by way of the family.” In fact, the saintly pope made it plain that he was trying “to show how the family is placed at the center of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love.”
In 1981 Sister Lucia of Fatima wrote to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra who was commissioned to establish John Paul II’s Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family. Don’t be afraid … because whoever works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue.”
She ended saying, “Nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head.”
We’re in the final battle which has now escalated to include gender identity. Shouldn’t we heed Jesus’ warning about being on the wide road where “the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many?”
“the well-being of our society and our own good are intimately tied to the good of the family.” Why? Because the mission of being the primary vital cell of society has been given to the family by God himself.
To the family is entrusted the task of striving, first and foremost, to unleash the forces of good, the source of which is found in Christ the Redeemer of man. Every family unit needs to make these forces their own.
Honor the Holy Family throughout February — and continue beyond the month — begin to model our families and ourselves after them. That way we will build our families into holy families.
No comments:
Post a Comment