Bringing Bethlehem and Nazareth together in our families this Christmas

By Ben Smith, Director of the Office of Life, Marriage and Family

This year we will be celebrating the Feast of the Holy Family the day after Christmas. It is fortuitous that this infrequent alignment of the calendar (it hasn’t occurred since 2010) is occurring 100 years after the inaugural celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family that was formally instituted into the liturgical calendar by Pope Benedict XV in 1921.

The celebration of these two feasts on consecutive days will help us to appreciate the importance of Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem but also His hidden life in the Holy Family in Egypt and Nazareth. His arrival on earth, after being hidden in Mary’s womb for nine months, was a great occasion of splendor with the appearance of angels and visits by shepherds and wise men bearing gifts. But these moments of adulation soon passed and Jesus’ life in the Holy Family was largely very routine and ordinary for a period of thirty years. The time that Jesus spent in the Holy Family helped to form his sacred humanity.

How can family life help to form our Christian life? Pope Francis has given us an answer to this question. During last year’s Feast of the Holy Family he said that: “the family of Nazareth is the model family, in which all families of the world can find their sure point of reference and sure inspiration.”

By following their example, all families are, according to Pope Francis, “called to rediscover the educational value of the family unit: it requires being founded on the love that always regenerates relationships, opening up horizons of hope… [where] one can experience sincere communion when it is a house of prayer, when affections are serious, profound, pure, when forgiveness prevails over discord, when the daily harshness of life is softened by mutual tenderness and serene adherence to God’s will.”

So, this Christmas is an opportunity for us to think deeply about how we can bring the peace and joy of Bethlehem and Nazareth into our everyday family life. How can we introduce some time for prayer and silence into our home so that we are not continuously distracted by devices? This quiet time with God can help us grow in love. When we are getting bored doing some cleaning let’s imagine we are sweeping the stable in Bethlehem or St Joseph’s workshop in Nazareth. Lastly, how can we ask a family member for forgiveness for something we have done during 2021?