In today's Gospel, we are first given the primary tenet of prayer, and his mother kept
all these things in her heart, and so we too are called, if we are to live a prayerful
life, to keep all these things in our hearts, all these things, that is, all those things
especially related to that mystery we celebrate today.
For the mystery of the Feast of the Holy Family first began in the life of the Church, that
is, in its liturgy, as a feast celebrated outside of Christmas, but eventually it was
brought in by the Vicar of Christ to coincide exactly with the Christmas mystery, because
the Christmas mystery is a mystery rooted not only in Christ and Mary, but in Saint
Joseph, that is, in the Holy Family.
And so, if we are to understand the roots of this devotion, we are to return to that
Christmas mystery when we see first and foremost devotion to the Holy Family spread to the
shepherds and to the masses.
It is to them that we turn to justify this devotion to the Holy Family, for indeed, if
we are not devoted to this most sacred of all families, then we truly cannot even refer
to ourselves as Christians, as the shepherds and the Magi so understood, because it is
from this family that we receive the Savior of the world, the Christ who came into our
lives.
And if we are to try to pinpoint...
what is known as the systematic devotion to the Holy Family, that is, its incorporation
into the liturgy and the Church's call for Christian families to more earnestly strive
to be devoted, that is, to imitate each and every member of the Holy Family, we need only
return to that medieval period, that medieval period that was both the greatest in Christendom
and perhaps, in one sense, the worst.
For it was the greatest becoming of the Church.
It was the greatest because the love of Christ and of the Holy Family had spread throughout
the known world.
And yet, it was also a time of trial and tribulation, for at the same time, those tenets would be
set in place that would ultimately bring about the complete assault on the Holy Family.
But this was to be expected, as the Lord himself would instruct us in his public ministry.
What they have done to me, they will do to you.
And what is it that was first done to the Christ child, if not the assault of the Holy
Family?
In seeking to kill the Christ child, did not Herod seek to destroy that concord of love
between Joseph, Mary, and Jesus?
He most certainly did.
And so, we see that at all times in history, especially after the advent of this Holy Family,
the devil's assault will be on family and family life, authentic family life.
And so, what was it that brought about this call from the vicar of Christ for the members
of the body to be completely devoted to the Holy Family as its protection against the
assaults of the medieval world and the modern world and the world to the end of time?
It was both in external and internal strifes that came about.
The external strifes primarily consisted of plagues, devastating famines, wars, and economic
troubles, as well as many social upheavals.
That is, an attempt by some to try to reconcile the pagan lifestyle with the Christian lifestyle,
or more commonly known as the Renaissance, not in its Christian form, but in its pseudo-pagan
form, in which members of the mystical body would try to compromise between the two ways
of life.
Those ways that are completely antithetical to each other.
And these external forces work to threaten not merely the welfare of the family, but
its very survival, because the external strain caused by Satan on the family brought about
a crisis of affections within the family, and most especially, that crisis in which
the headship of the father is always questioned.
And that is quite precisely what our modern feminist society is.
It is a call.
It is to call into question.
The divine hierarchy of the very family, and indeed, even to call it into question,
is to assail the family as God has constituted it.
And so, during this call from the Church for Christian families to again reclaim those affections
of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, Saint Joseph would begin to take a more prominent role in the
life of the mystical body.
And that is precisely the call.
And indeed, we see at Fatima that the mother of God herself seals that call.
It is as if she is saying, give to Joseph in your lives the place he had in the lives
of me, and my child Jesus, and the church and the family will truly be protected.
Why?
Because Joseph was that wise and assiduous man, that diligent head of the Holy Family,
who warded off the social, political, and moral tension.
and economic evils arrayed against the Holy Family.
And so the head of every Christian family was called to imitate him
who rescued the Christ child and the Virgin Mary from murderous Herod
and supported them in Egypt by practicing the Carpenters' trade
and who also protected them on their perilous journeys.
And indeed, is not each and every family on a perilous journey in this life?
Is not Satan waiting at all opportunities to bring down the family,
to destroy what many theologians called, beginning with that great theologian,
Jason, the earthly trinity, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph?
He is always and everywhere seeking to assail that family.
And indeed, that was all that he ever sought to do.
From the very moment it was revealed to him that the second person
of the blessed trinity.
would become man, then he began his assault on the human family,
sowing the seeds of discord to our first parents, Adam and Eve,
bringing about their fall, but it was not him who caused their fall.
It was their cooperation with him in that anti-family mentality
that brought down their fall.
They truly cooperated as our modern world is cooperating
in this modern assault on the family.
And so, if we are to understand this mystery,
then we are to ponder that each and every member of the Holy family
is a model and exemplifies the particular virtues
that each member of the family must exercise.
Saint Joseph manifest to us that paternal care and concern of a father.
And so, it is precisely to the father, who mercy is primarily received,
and this is perfectly in accord with the life of the blessed trinity.
For it is it,
not the father's son who offers himself for our sake, and so God our father truly is a merciful
father, for he spared not even his only son in order that we may be saved. Mary becomes a model
and exemplar for true motherhood because she gives to us that sublime ideal of love, modesty,
and obedience, and Jesus is the model for every child in the family life, and so at some point in
our life he is always the model for us because he models for us and gives to us the example of
loving obedience, and indeed that is precisely what the gospel tells us. He who created both
the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph went and was subject to them, and so we see very clearly
the power of grace because God the Father saw in Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary
two souls completely in love,
with the Blessed Trinity, seeking to live that life of the Trinity in their own lives, and so they
exemplified that and were incapable at that point of leading the Christ child astray, and so they
become the model for each and every one of us because their life is incapable of leading us
astray, and hence incapable of leading the human family astray, and what was the hallmark of this
life?
The Holy Family. They lived a poor and a simple, and a simple life that depended upon the manual
labor of Joseph and Jesus in order to support it, and so it offers an inspiration for all families
struggling to survive in this assault on the family, and indeed, according to many of the
doctors and fathers, it was the Blessed Virgin who also supplemented that support of the family.
Notice,
that the wife always works in support of the head, she does not take over control of the house, and so
Our Lady always offered support and always offered help, doing those tasks that are primarily assigned to a woman the
mending of clothes brought to her by the Egyptians, and so the Holy Family was earnestly involved while it went into
flight into Egypt in both the spiritual and the corporal works of mercy, and so they truly become the model and
exemplar for all missionary activity in the Church. And so, the Holy Family truly
is, for each and every one of us, an example of a mature humanity, that is, a
mature humanity. How do we define a mature humanity? We do not define it by
the size of its gross national product. We do not define it by what it produces
in the way of the entertainments of our modern world. What defines the maturity
of a family is how much that family loves the God from whom they came. And
that love can only be manifested in an authentic way unless the soul seeks
always and everywhere to honor that family that God had in mind from the
beginning of time, that family that constituted the creation. For it was not
necessarily Adam and Eve that was the cause, if we want to say, of creation, but
it was Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Because God the Father saw in them a family that would give everything to
them, every beat of their heart, every word, every thing they did, all their
actions, all their labors would be given in sacrifice, and so they truly were a
mature human family because at every moment of their life they loved God the
Father. And they also give us that primary example of the obedience of
faith and the
of love, and it is, as Pope John Paul II said, the original domestic church. Indeed, it is the model
and exemplar of all domestic church, and it is this holy family that becomes that which each
family must strive. And so, the holy family is the answer to all those who would blasphemously
assert that the mother of God was the first unwed mother, and often we hear such statements,
and we do not even recognize the blasphemous nature of such horrendous thinking. And indeed,
we do not realize that if we accept such tenets, then we are cooperating with the very destruction
of the human family. For does not St. Matthew tell us,
Joseph, do not be afraid?
Do not be afraid to take Mary, your wife, and modern translators can insert as all they want, but in the Vulgate, the official Bible, that is, the one that is without error, there is no conjunction.
There is simply, do not be afraid to take Mary, your wife, and if we do not even believe scripture, then historical analysis of the Jewish culture tells us very clearly,
that to be betrothed was to be married. It was a two-fold process, the marriage already taking place before the husband went to dwell with his wife, but a true marriage has already transpired, and if this is not the case, then truly, eat, drink, and be married, for tomorrow we die, and there is no hope for our salvation.
But by the very fact that the holy sacrifice of the mass is being perpetuated,
it is a proof, both of the divinity of the church and its origin, and also the protection of St. Joseph, for has not the church been assailed from its very beginning?
Go, grab that Peter and his disciples, flog them a little bit, bring them in, and when they're scared, we'll bring them around.
And what does St. Peter answer? What St. Joseph would answer? Is it better for me to obey you,
or to obey O God? And St. Peter would even challenge them at that point.
Send those who scourged me by my side, because when I leave this prison, I will preach the same truth,
the same love of the holy family, and so if you wait five minutes, you'll have opportunity to flog me again,
because St. Joseph is not intimidated by the ways of the world, because he loved Jesus and Mary too much,
and that is why,
especially in our modern era,
popes have told us that in addition to the holy family being the original domestic church,
it is as well the cradle and the prototype of the civilization of love.
What is being said here by the pontiffs when they describe the holy family as the cradle and
the civilization of love? That is a refutation to all those
who think that ape named Lucy is the origin of the human family by a process of evolution.
The cradle is where humanity is given birth, and so it truly is the holy family.
That is the model of all family life, and not only that, it teaches us how every human being comes into existence,
not by an evolutionary process designed to
rip the hope out of the heart of mankind, but by the love of God, in which He calls us into existence out of nothing,
and when we say nothing, we mean matter, because He calls us out of something most profound,
which was the first call of the holy family, His love, and then He uses the cooperation of a man and a woman
to perpetuate that love until the end of time.
that is why children have the right to one man and to one woman united in a
concord of love until death do they part they have the right and when that right
is usurped God is not happy not only is God not happy God will not continue
children to be assaulted in such a way he will come and he will defend them and
so let us strive to be those who cooperate in their defense by the
missionary activity of the world whether it be strictly speaking in the mission
lands or in the very mission of the own area in which God has assigned us how by
imitating the Holy Family by exercising the spiritual and the corporal works of
mercy and then we will come to know and to understand that everything that
family did was a holy thing
cemented and held together by prayer and so we will come to understand that
labor has a distinction from temporal affairs for labor is something that
human beings do who love God that is they give every faculty of their mind
and their body back to God and they cement that offering by the life of
prayer temporal affairs have to do with politics in such matters
but labor has become a blessing for is it not the first blessing bestowed upon
the fathers of the family in toil and labor you will bring forth fruit from
the earth in toil and labor that is by an act of love and so often we
misinterpret scripture when we see that as a curse for God now has added
suffering to labor in order that it truly may become a labor of love for the
soul it is truly a blessing because by it we can cooperate in that mission that
was the essential mission of the Holy Family to suffer and to labor and to
pray always for the salvation of all families and so the church has brought
this mystery into the very heart of the Christian mystery because without an
understanding in a love of the Holy Family we cannot understand the
significance of the Christ child
we cannot understand why the shepherds would leave their flocks at that moment
because they were called to do something even more special to love the God from
whom they would receive the grace to repent of their sins so that all their
labors now all their works would become something more because united to Christ
they would become sacrificial offerings for his sake and the key is if they are
always done in obedience
to Holy Mother Church that is to the vicar of Christ our Papa or Abba as
scripture refers to him on earth because he truly is the one on earth called to
exemplify the virtues of Saint Joseph more than anyone and so let us truly
strive especially in fostering devotion to the Holy Family to foster devotion to
that member who was its head and let us always realize
the significance of that for there is a complete difference between Joseph and
Jesus and Mary because he was conceived in original sin and so we truly see in
him the power of God's grace that if we cooperate by prayer and labor we can
become quite extraordinary capable of defending the Holy Family not because
strictly speaking God needs any of us to defend him but because he has asked us
to as he asked Joseph to so we can prove our love and so let us defend them by
defending the family life and not having anything to do with all that is contrary
to it but let us retire to that life of Nazareth let us take that as a model and
example example so that silently and labor's of love
we can offer everything we do for our sake and the sake of humanity
so that humanity may truly come to know
that only love that can save them from the perils of this world,
that love that bound Jesus, Mary, and Joseph together,
that love that on this earth most earnestly imitates that perfect love
that binds the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together,
the Blessed Trinity, the source and the origin of our lives.
And if we are to return to that source and origin,
we must do so by way of the Holy Family.
And so that love begins first by abandoning everything
and making, even if it's a brief visit like the shepherds,
making a visit to the creche, to the Christ child in the cave.
But once we leave that cave, every labor we do,
in accord with obedience to the will of God,
is a labor of love and hence united to the sacrifice of Christ
and hence cooperates in the redemption of the world.
And so we have all the tools to bring about a destruction,
whether it be of the economic evils, the social evils, the plagues,
the natural disasters, whatever it is that assails the family,
can be solved.
And so, we are transformed by a visit to the Holy Family
in the creche set.
Because when we leave there, after we have bent our knees
in adoration of the Holy Family, we are transformed.
And everything we do, we do in cooperation with the mission
of that family, to bring Christ to the world.
And so it is, outside of the mystery of that family,
there is no hope.
There is no salvation.
All paths are not a way to God.
There is only one path.
And every other path is a way away from God.
It is only the path trodden first by the shepherds,
then by the Magi, then by every soul who seeks to overcome their sin,
the path that leads to Bethlehem and culminates in Calvary.
But we mean in our earthly life.
For the culmination is in the Holy Family.
For the culmination is in the Holy Family.
For the culmination is in the life of the body.
For if we begin at Bethlehem and end at Calvary,
then the culmination is union with that same blessed Trinity
together for all eternity in heaven.
And on that one day at Bethlehem on the—
God is whole in heaven.
God is Son of God on earth