FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Open our heart, O Lord,
to accept the words of your Son. ACTS 16:14

1 SAMUEL 1:20-22,24-28

My Soul's Beloved,

All I have You have given me. You have blessed me immensely from the moment I was conceived in my mother's womb and You have been with me always. Thank You for the children You blessed me with and one that in Your wisdom You took to Yourself. All my children O Lord I have always offered to You, even though they are mine, the first belonged to You and they are Yours forever.

Beloved, Hannah longed for a child with a longing that consumed her whole being and she pleaded with God to give her her heart's desire and God did bless her with a son, Samuel. God had taken away her shame and her disgrace but she did not cling to the gift that was given to her but freely, unreservedly gave him back to God.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, I give You my family, my children, and I ask nothing more than this Beloved, that You keep them save in Your love and bring them home at last to Yourself eternally.

Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, and called him Samuel ‘since’ she said ‘I asked the Lord for him.’

When she had weaned him, she took him up with her together with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the temple of the Lord at Shiloh; and the child was with them. They slaughtered the bull and the child’s mother came to Eli. She said, ‘If you please, my lord. As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying to the Lord. This is the child I prayed for, and the Lord granted me what I asked him. Now I make him over to the Lord for the whole of his life. He is made over to the Lord.’

PSALM 83(84):2-3,5-6,9-10

My Soul's Beloved,

We are Yours purchased by Your Blood. We belong irrevocably to You and we are happy and fulfilled when we nestle close to Your Heart. It is when we wander away from the path of holiness and righteousness that we fall prey to the wiles of the Enemy. Grant us wisdom, Lord, that we may always say no to the flesh and to keep our gaze fixed on the prize which is the Kingdom of God.

Lord God, our Savior, and Redeemer, never let us be parted from You. Reach out to us and prevent us from making choices that lead us astray. You give us life and You fill us with Your Spirit as long as we are united with You we will live the abundant life and bear good fruit, fruit that will last.

My Lord and my God, be merciful to us O Lord and do not permit us to stray from You and finally bring us safely to our rest never to be parted from You.

How lovely is your dwelling place,

Lord, God of hosts.
My soul is longing and yearning,
is yearning for the courts of the Lord.

They are happy who dwell in your house, O Lord.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer,

give ear, O God of Jacob.
Turn your eyes, O God, our shield,
look on the face of your anointed.

They are happy who dwell in your house, O Lord.

1 JOHN 3:1-2,21-24

My Soul's Beloved,

We are baptized into Your Body and are members of the family of God. We are privileged to call God, Your Father, our Abba. You have poured Your Holy Spirit into our hearts and it is the Spirit that enables us to cry out, to the glory of God, that You are Lord. 

Beloved, how easily we could have been born outside the faith, outside the Church, but through no merit of ours except Your sheer goodness and mercy, we were born in a Catholic home and received the free gift of faith. Thank You, Lord, for not permitting us to stray too far from embrace in our Youth and when we were tempted to do so, You led us back gently back into the fold.

My Lord, I believe, in Your time and in Your way You will bring back every member of my family home to the Catholic Church for only in her do You dwell in fullness and in truth. Grant the gift of Baptism to those in my family who are not baptized. I know You will hear and answer me for this is the desire of our Father as well. 

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in You.

My dear people,
if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience,
we need not be afraid in God’s presence,
and whatever we ask him,
we shall receive,
because we keep his commandments
and live the kind of life that he wants.
His commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.
Whoever keeps his commandments
lives in God and God lives in him.
We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us.

LUKE 2:41-52

My Soul's Beloved,

For twelve years You lived quietly under the loving and watchful gaze of Mother Mary and Joseph. Yes, You were the Son of Mary but they were also aware that You were the Son of God and they only knew as much about Your divinity as was revealed to them, which was not much. They accepted everything on faith. Having been chosen by God to nurture, watch over, and protect the Child they surrendered their whole lives to fulfilling the great honor God had bestowed on them.

When as usual, that year, they prepared for the yearly trip to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover they had no way of knowing that everything would change for them from then on. The journey to Jerusalem was unremarkable, they had made this journey to and fro without incident for eleven years and had no reason to believe that his trip would be any different. On the way back home to Nazareth, after a day's journey, everything changed for Mary and Joseph. One can only imagine the terror that struck them when they discovered You were not with the caravan.

My Lord and my God, parents from time immemorial have suffered because of their children. The terror, sorrow, and numbing grief that strikes the hearts of parents is so great and never quite leaves us. We can lose our children in so many ways and there are times that they may never return. In times like these Lord, we can turn to Mary and Joseph and take comfort that they too suffered as we do and they will pray and intercede for us.

It is hard O Lord not to cling to our children. We learn from Hannah to give back to God what He has freely given us. We learn from Mary and Joseph to not give up hope but to search for You until we find You. Too often we lose You because of wrong choices that we make and they take us further and further away from You but if we keep our gaze on You and look for You with a contrite heart and a broken spirit we will find You. 

Mary and Joseph were struck with wonder when they did find You on the third day and their hearts were filled with joy. Yet the sorrow never quite left them even though You returned home to Nazareth with them and from then on You were obedient to them as You grew in age and wisdom. Mary, in particular, we are told, kept all these things in her heart and pondered on them.

Lord Jesus, grant us the grace also to keep Your Word in our hearts, ponder on all that happens to us in the light of the Gospel, and allow all that occurs in our lives to be moments in which we grow in wisdom and in stature after the heart, mind, and will of God.

Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual. When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it. They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances. When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.
Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.’
‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied. ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ But they did not understand what he meant.
He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority.
His mother stored up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men.

ST. JOSEPH – HUSBAND AND FATHER

ST. JOSEPH – HUSBAND AND FATHER

"He that is lesser among you all, he is the greater” - Luke 9:48)

In the midst of Lent the Church gives us a little taste of Christmas joy as we celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary, and foster father of the Son of God, Jesus. While honoring St. Joseph the Church calls to mind that moment in time when God swept aside the curtain separating God from humankind and became Emmanuel, God with us.  

The genealogy of Jesus begins with Abraham and concludes with the text, “Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and from her came Jesus who is called the Christ, the Messiah. (Mt 1:16) The little we know about St. Joseph is found in just two chapters of the Gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew. In the latter we read that ‘he was a just man;’ some versions say that he was a righteous man. “When his [Jesus] mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.  Joseph, her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.” (Matt 1:18-19). To be just or righteous in Biblical language means to be adorned with all the virtues. Abraham is also described as being a just man by St. Paul who writes, “Abraham believed God who took it into account and held him to be a just man,” (Rom 4:3) 

From the Gospel of Matthew 1:1:16, 18-25 we learn that Mary who was betrothed to Joseph but whom he had not yet taken into his home, was found to be with child. Living in the 21^st century we cannot fully grasp the terrible implications to Mary if this news was made public. All could have gone horribly and tragically wrong if either Mary or Joseph had trusted their own instincts rather than God. Into this dramatic and explosive situation, even as St. Joseph was pondering whether he should secretly divorce Mary, an Angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream to explain, comfort and reassure him saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." Verse 24 goes on to tell us, “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.” 

Of all the men living in Israel at the time God chose St. Joseph to watch over, protect, love, cherish and live in close intimacy with Jesus and Mary. St. Joseph, the great Saint of exquisite silence, teaches us to do God’s will without fuss or delay. His silence is not weakness but serves to portray his profound awe at being chosen by God for so great a mission. His silence teaches us much more than any words ever could. His was a simple, childlike faith, to which there is always only one response - total obedience; although he may have trembled in awe at the weight of so great a responsibility, he did not flinch or shrink.  From his example we learn that we too can be pleasing to God by our love, obedience and humility; virtues by which we can enter the heart of God and His Kingdom.

St. Joseph was a good husband, father, provider, teacher, worker, leader, care-giver and guide.  To this list of adjectives many more can be added. He understood the privilege and the responsibility entrusted to him, because he was always attentive to the voice of God he was able to hear God and fulfill all that God desired of him; he did this quietly, silently, humbly, promptly, obediently and willingly.  It is no wonder then that he has been greatly loved and revered and his manifold virtues extolled by many popes and Saints alike. 

The doctrine of St. Joseph's pre-eminence received the approval of Leo XIII in his encyclical Quamquam Pluries, August 15th, 1899, written to proclaim St. Joseph patron of the universal Church. In paragraph 3 of this Encyclical the pope tells us why devotion to St. Joseph is fitting. This is what the pope says,  “The special motives for which St. Joseph has been proclaimed Patron of the Church, and from which the Church looks for singular benefit from his patronage and protection, are that Joseph was the spouse of Mary and that he was reputed the Father of Jesus Christ. From these sources have sprung his dignity, his holiness, his glory. In truth, the dignity of the Mother of God is so lofty that naught created can rank above it. But as Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than any to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God surpasses so nobly all created natures. For marriage is the most intimate of all unions which from its essence imparts a community of gifts between those that by it are joined together. Thus in giving Joseph the Blessed Virgin as spouse, God appointed him to be not only her life's companion, the witness of her maidenhood, the protector of her honour, but also, by virtue of the conjugal tie, a participator in her sublime dignity. And Joseph shines among all mankind by the most august dignity, since by divine will, he was the guardian of the Son of God and reputed as His father among men. Hence it came about that the Word of God was humbly subject to Joseph, that He obeyed him, and that He rendered to him all those offices that children are bound to render to their parents. From this two-fold dignity flowed the obligation which nature lays upon the head of families, so that Joseph became the guardian, the administrator, and the legal defender of the divine house whose chief he was. And during the whole course of his life he fulfilled those charges and those duties. He set himself to protect with a mighty love and a daily solicitude his spouse and the Divine Infant; regularly by his work he earned what was necessary for the one and the other for nourishment and clothing; he guarded from death the Child threatened by a monarch's jealousy, and found for Him a refuge; in the miseries of the journey and in the bitternesses of exile he was ever the companion, the assistance, and the upholder of the Virgin and of Jesus. Now the divine house which Joseph ruled with the authority of a father, contained within its limits the scarce-born Church. From the same fact that the most holy Virgin is the mother of Jesus Christ is she the mother of all Christians whom she bore on Mount Calvary amid the supreme throes of the Redemption; Jesus Christ is, in a manner, the first-born of Christians, who by the adoption and Redemption are his brothers. And for such reasons the Blessed Patriarch looks upon the multitude of Christians who make up the Church as confided specially to his trust - this limitless family spread over the earth, over which, because he is the spouse of Mary and the Father of Jesus Christ he holds, as it were, a paternal authority. It is, then, natural and worthy that as the Blessed Joseph ministered to all the needs of the family at Nazareth and girt it about with his protection, he should now cover with the cloak of his heavenly patronage and defend the Church of Jesus Christ."

"On May 1, 2013, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments promulgated the decree Paternas vices by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Francis. The decree instructs that the name of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, should be inserted into Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV. Already on November 13, 1962, Pope John XXIII had inserted the name of St. Joseph into the first Eucharistic Prayer (the Roman Canon), and now that work has been carried forward to the other three Eucharistic Prayers, initially by Pope Benedict XVI and now confirmed by Pope Francis." http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/order-of-mass/liturgy-of-the-eucharist/saint-joseph-in-the-eucharistic-prayers.cfm

Let us pray to St. Joseph to extend his fatherly protection over our homes, our families and our Church. His intercession on our behalf will always be heard for Jesus could never refuse the father whom He loved, honored and obeyed on earth.