Pastor’s Desk ~ December 29, 2024

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024
7:30 am, 9:00 am, 10:30 am
12: 00 pm (Spanish)
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2024
8:00 am, Eng. and 10:00 am (Bilingual)
A Holy Day of Obligation

Dear Fellow Parishioners,

One of the English Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins’s best known poems is, “May Magnificat.” It begins, “May is Mary’s month and I/ Muse at that and wonder why…” Hopkins was one of the greatest nature poets of the 19th century, and continues in this poem to liken the springing forth of nature in May with the fecundity of Mary as Mother of God.

While acknowledging Hopkins’ right to poetic license, the real Mary month could well be December 8th to January 6th, during which there are no fewer than five feasts in which Mary plays an important, if not central, role: Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Holy Family, Mary, Mother of God, and Epiphany. (Make that six feasts if you include Our Lady of Guadalupe who, though important, is not associated with salvation history in the same way.)

With those five feasts, we cover the time between Mary’s conception through the Birth of the Savior, to the creation of the Holy Family, to the revelation of Jesus as light to the nations. These feasts, plus the Advent Sunday scripture readings, provide both back-story and sequel to Christmas itself. No wonder the secular celebration of Christmas is so flat and one-dimensional – so much of the greater story is never told.

This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. This feast and devotion is unusual in that the subject of the Holy Family became popular only from about 1490 on, and then only through artistic representations. Veneration of the Holy Family did not formally begin until the mid-1600s, at the direction of St. Francois de Laval, the founding bishop of New France, later Quebec. (That diocese included all of Canada from Lake Michigan to the Atlantic coast, a fair chunk of real estate. No pastor needed to worry about the bishop just dropping by.) Surprisingly, St. Francois de Laval was not beatified until 1980 by Pope John Paul II, and canonized in 2014 by Pope Francis.

Very little is known about the lives of Jesus, Mary and Joseph beyond Jesus’ early infancy. What we believe is the result of inference from other known or presumed facts. They were observant Jews who lived humble but productive lives, and attended religious festivals in Jerusalem. If they followed the customs of the times, Jesus remained in the house with Mary until he was deemed old enough to join his father in the workshop. While Joseph is usually referred to as a carpenter, he was probably much more than that, as “carpenters” felled and dragged trees from outside of town to their workshop (which may have adjoined their house). It was a strenuous and necessary profession which taught the dignity and necessity of work.

What we can infer about the early days of Jesus and the Holy Family, as noted by Pope Paul VI, was the quiet of Bethlehem, a quiet which made it nearly impossible not to think and pray with an expansive interior life. The quiet, and the starry nights. That is the quiet in which Mary “stored all these things in her heart.” That was also the quiet in which Jesus worked while planning, for our sake, to run away from home, start a revolution, and break his mother’s heart.

Continued Christmas Blessings,
Fr. Bill Donahue