Feast of the Holy Family

The first Sunday after Christmas, on the liturgical calendar, celebrates the Holy Family. Pope Leo XIII instituted this feast in 1892, encouraging societies honoring the Holy Family to be established everywhere. He established this feast day to remind families of the sacredness of the family and to provide the laity with a model upon which to structure their own families. In 1974 Pope Paul VI wrote, in his Apostolic Exhortation, Marialis Cultus (For the Right Ordering and Development of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary):

On the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (the Sunday within the octave of Christmas) the Church meditates with profound reverence upon the holy life led in the house at Nazareth by Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, Mary His Mother, and Joseph the just man (cf. Mt. 1:19).

HT Living Catholicism

Some thoughts on this year’s Feast of the Holy Family.

This year, commemoration of the Holy Innocents isn’t part of the liturgical calendar because it falls on Sunday, and the Feast of the Holy Family then supercedes it. I usually try to make it to mass in remembrance of the Holy Innocents as a way of remembering my own stillborn son.  It is a special thing I do as his mother.

But this year, I think we will try to incorporate the remembrance of our little baby into the celebration of our entire family. What a nice way to remember his short life and to remind all of us that everyone of us is an important part of the family and even death doesn’t really change that.  Those who have died before us are just head of us and their prayers lead us on. 

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