The Feast of the Holy Family

While the family is the single most important institution on earth, the family is also in far more desperate straits today than it ever was in the history of the world - Peter Kreeft

The Feast of the Holy Family celebrates the human family unit, as well as the ultimate family unit: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

The feast is usually celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas. If Christmas is a Sunday, then the feast is celebrated on December 30.

The devotion to the Holy Family was born in Bethlehem along with baby Jesus. The shepherds went to adore the Child, and at the same time, they gave honor to His family. Later, in a similar way, the three wise men came from the East to adore and give honor to the newborn King with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh that would be safeguarded by His family.

The Feast of the Holy Family is not just about the Holy Family, but about our own families too. The main purpose of the Feast is to present the Holy Family as the model for all Christian families, and for domestic life in general. Our family life becomes sanctified when we live the life of the Church within our homes. This is called the "domestic church.” St. John Chrysostom urged all Christians to make each home a "family church," and in doing so, this sanctifies the family unit.

The Church affirms that the family is the original cell of society, that the families' communion of persons closely resembles the persons of the Holy Trinity.

Antonin Gaudi called God's Architect was so inspired by the notion, he designed the Holy Family (Sagrada Familia) Cathedral in Barcelona, Spain.Pope St. John Paul II said, “The future of humanity passes by way of the family.” "The family is the foundation of co-existence and a remedy against social fragmentation. Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity". – Pope Francis Humanum Conference, November 17, 2014.

A marriage is the creation of a family, the very essence of the family. The minimum core of it. It is the thing that in itself constitutes a family and without which we do not have a family, no matter what else we have. A marriage is in essence a man and a woman who promise fidelity and are open to having children. That is the essence of the design created and willed by God the Creator. No one can change thar design.we can only change the names.

Even when a family becomes dysfunctional. It is still a family. It's a dysfunctional family, not a non-family. A bad family can become a good family.  But a good partnership or a good friendship or a good business cannot become a family. There's a little bad in the best of us and a little good in the worst of us. And there's always hope for all of us.

"The Catholic Church is the only institution in the world that still, everywhere and always, teaches the fundamental and universal principle of sexual, marital and family fidelity.

That is why she is scorned, and sneered at by the secular media and hated and feared by the devil: because she dares to stand up to what St. John Paul the Great dared to call our culture of death  and what Pope Benedict XVI called the 'dictatorship of relativism' and  stand for every single human being's intrinsic, inviolable, and inalienable right to life from the moment of Conception to the moment of natural death. Her not to abortion, her no to divorce, her not to the 'sexual revolution" and sexual infidelity, and her no to euthanasia ate all essential parts of that seamless garment of pro-life issues." Peter Kreeft

According to Peter Kreeft, while the family is the single most important institution on earth, the family is also in far more desperate straits today than it ever was in the history of the world. Every society in history that has had a high respect for religion has also had a high respect for family- and vice versa. Half of our families commit suicide by divorcing. That's what a divorce is: the ripping apart of the 'one fresh' created by marriage.

An unhealthy family cannot fulfill its mission in the world. In 1965, 25% of African American children were raised fatherless. Today it is 75% According to Fathers.com children from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug and alcohol abuse, drop out of school, and suffer from health and emotional problems. Boys are more likely to become involved in crime, and girls are more likely to become pregnant as teens. Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families.

Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse. There is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father. A study of 1,977 children age 3 and older living with a residential father or father figure found that children living with married biological parents had significantly fewer externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems than children living with at least one non-biological parent. Children of single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to commit suicide. Data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N= 2,111) was used to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers’ relationship changes between birth and age 3 on their children’s well-being. Children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers. Living in a single-mother household is equivalent to experiencing 5.25 partnership transitions.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life and event organizer, says Pope Francis wants the WMOF (The X World Meeting of Families Celebration took place in Rome starting June 22, through June 26, 2022,) to be lived in local Churches around the world, and points to the holy examples of married couples who have become canonized saints.

Pope Francis says that “Perfect families do not exist. This must not discourage us. Quite the opposite. Love is something we learn; love is something we live; love grows as it is 'forged' by the concrete situations which each particular family experiences. Love is born and constantly develops amid lights and shadows. Love can flourish in men and women who try not to make conflict the last word, but rather a new opportunity. An opportunity to seek help, an opportunity to question how we need to improve, an opportunity to discover the God Who is with us and never abandons us. This is a great legacy that we can give to our children, a very good lesson: we make mistakes, yes; we have problems, yes. But we know that that is not really what counts. We know that mistakes, problems and conflicts are an opportunity to draw closer to others, to draw closer to God.”-- Address to Festival of Families, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Sept. 27, 2015

Finally, the Holy Father is asking the1.2 billion fellow Catholics around the world to pray for the spiritual health of the family. The father is the spiritual leader of the family and leaders set the tone. There are countless issues Pope Francis could focus on, but he is prioritizing the need to pray for families—to strengthen and encourage them at a time when the future does not seem too bright. The power and reality of intercessory prayer means that brothers and sisters in Christ are lifting up your family’s intentions to the Lord. And with the World Meeting of Families official prayer, you and your family are also invited to intercede for others.






Just how does one live out the Church in the family? The best way is by making Christ the center of family and individual life. Ways to do this include reading scripture regularly, praying daily, attending Mass at least on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, imitating the actions of the Holy Family, going to confession frequently, all done together as a family unit.