Dear Parish Family,
As we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family, I invite you to reflect on your own family. The family is the temple where the flame of life is transmitted. It is a temple dedicated to the Lord of Life. The family is naturally ordered to serve what John Paul II has called the Gospel of life, the ‘Evangelium vitae’. Every birth ought to declare: Life is good news! The family is therefore an intensely spiritual society, and the conjugal act that is at the heart of the marriage and which is its fire has a spiritual dimension which is too often forgotten in our day. Fatherhood and motherhood represent a responsibility which is not simply physical but spiritual in nature.
‘Three to Get Married’ was the name of a popular book written by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. The title of this book holds a great truth. Marriage involves more than two parties: one man and one woman. The third party--often forgotten in what Bishop Sheen called the "dis-God-ed" generation--is God. The institution of marriage, one must not forget, is not one designed by the will of the parties. One of the benefits of marriage is conjugal love. Here, too, God is the author conjugal love. It is His plan and he saw ‘it is good’ (as we read in Genesis). He has endowed it with various benefits and purposes. The benefits do not come without responsibilities. Perhaps the most apparent and perhaps the most abused in our own age: "Conjugal love is by its nature open to the acceptance of life." Not only have we modern humans have severed the tie between sex and marriage, we have severed the tie between sex and procreation. Modern man has a penchant for separating things that ought to be together and putting things together that ought to be separate.
In family life and marriage we must remember with reverenced that what we do involves persons, and this changes the entire complexion of the matter. No brute animal shares in this privilege. Here are characteristics of a Catholic Family. May be around the dinner table read this and find out where you excel and where you need to improve.
1. Catholic Families Worship Together: The Eucharist is the source of the deep love and intimacy Catholic families are called to live out. To celebrate this, Catholic families attend Mass together on Sundays and holy days (and at other times as we are able) and actively participate in the sacramental life of the Church.
2. Catholic Families Pray Together: Catholic families are called to love with the love that flows from God’s own heart. Therefore, in addition to both our individual prayer life and our worship with our parish communities, we gather together for family prayer each and every day.
3. Catholic Families Are Called to Intimacy: To do this, we constantly seek new ways to be even more open with and loving to one another as husband and wife, parents and children.
4. Catholic Families Put Family First: We treat family life as the most important activity in our week. We create and protect family rituals — like regular family dinners, time for prayer and worship, weekly game nights and family days, and regularly scheduled times for communication and relationship-building — that give us regular time to work, play, talk and pray together.
5. The Catholic Family Is a Witness and Sign: We intentionally practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy within our home and outside of it (Help children understand what this is!). We regularly talk about how we can do a better job of living out our family mission to be a sign of God’s love in the world.
Happy Feast of Holy Family and God’s blessings on the New Year.
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.