Vigils Reading – Holy Family Sunday

THE FAMILY AT NAZARETH

By Fr Ambroise-Marie Carré

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In these days when the Church is experiencing a renewal of its youth, how

many families would be enriched by contemplation of the extraordinary beauty

to be seen in the unique love of the family at Nazareth! For centuries it has been

by constantly returning to the marriage of Joseph and Mary, to the home to

which Jesus first brought his radically new message of salvation, that

theologians have defined the principles of marriage for those baptized into the

Christian faith. St Augustine never spoke of marriage without reference to the

Holy Family. And there are wonderful pages in Bossuet devoted to the subject

of that union, which was, he said, “most true,” because Mary and Joseph,

trusting each other with their virginity, “gave themselves to each other” in love.

A sentence of St. Luke’s sheds light on this great mystery: Mary “kept all

these things in her heart”. The family at Nazareth lived in complete harmony,

cherishing “compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience”. The

presence of God incarnate, and of his love, transfigured all in joy and wonder.

Such things as Mary and Joseph were able to understand penetrated them to the

very depths of their being. And what they could not understand, such as that

occasion when their young son disappeared and was later found in the temple,

they kept within them, so that those gestures and words of his whose meaning

they could not grasp with their minds might act on their hearts, and gradually

open them to the measure of the Father’s will.

Surely this is, very specially, the right way to live for any who have taken

vows in the name of the Lord. If you wish the ideal, you must let Christ live

among you and within you. Whatever you find in your lives that seems to you

clear, happy and fruitful, you should learn how to appreciate it: there are so

many who do not! And as for your misunderstanding, which are the cause of

suffering in so many homes…you should keep all these things in your heart, not

to swell into bitterness, but so as to let suffering and the divine force of you

sacramental vow transform that self-centered heart. Nor will the love which is

blessed by God and which follows God’s command ever leave us: it can only be

dismissed. But you have not dismissed love. So let God purify and renew your

love, as he purifies and renews the faith of those who seek him. On the third day,

in the love of Jesus, it will rise again.