1st book of Samuel 1,20-22.24-28. She conceived, and at the end of her term bore a son whom she called Samuel, since she had asked the LORD for him. The next time her husband Elkanah was going up with the rest of his household to offer the customary sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vows, Hannah did not go, explaining to her husband, "Once the child is weaned, I will take him to appear before the LORD and to remain there forever; I will offer him as a perpetual nazirite." Once he was weaned, she brought him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh. After the boy's father had sacrificed the young bull, Hannah, his mother, approached Eli and said: "Pardon, my lord! As you live my lord, I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request. Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD." She left Samuel there. Psalms 84(83),2-3.5-6.9-10. How lovely your dwelling, O LORD of hosts! My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the LORD. My heart and flesh cry out for the living God. Blessed are they who dwell in your house!
Continually they praise you. Happy the men whose strength you are! Their hearts are set upon the pilgrimage. O LORD of hosts, hear our prayer;
hearken, O God of Jacob! O God, behold our shield, and look upon the face of your anointed. First Letter of John 3,1-2.21-24. Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Beloved, if (our) hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit that he gave us. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 2,41-52. Each year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety." And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth. God chose a humble and simple family by which to come into our midst. Let us contemplate in amazement the beauty of this mystery, also highlighting two concrete aspects for our families.
The first: the family is the story from which we originate. Each of us has our own story. None of us was born magically, with a magic wand. Each of us has our own story and the family is the story from which we originate. The Gospel of today’s liturgy reminds us that Jesus too is the son of a family story. We see him travelling to Jerusalem with Mary and Joseph for the Passover; then he makes his Mum and Dad worry when they cannot find him; found again, he returns home with them (cf. Lk 2:41-51). It is beautiful to see Jesus inserted into the fabric of familial affections, which were born and grew in the caresses and concerns of his parents. This is important for us as well: we come from a story that was woven with bonds of love, and the person we are today was born not so much out of the material goods that we enjoyed, but from the love that we received, from the love in the heart of the family. We may not have been born into an exceptional family without problems, but this is our story — everyone must think: this is my story — these are our roots: if we cut them off, life dries up! God did not create us to be lone rangers, but to walk together. Let us thank him and pray to him for our families. God thinks about us and wants us to be together: grateful, united, capable of preserving our roots. And we have to think about this, about our own story.
The second aspect: we learn how to be a family, each day. In the Gospel, we see that even in the Holy Family things did not all go well: there were unexpected problems, anxiety, suffering. The Holy Family of holy cards does not exist. Mary and Joseph lose Jesus and search for him anxiously, only to find him three days later. And when, seated among the teachers in the Temple, he responds that he had to be about his Father’s business, they do not understand. They need time to learn to know their son. So it is with us too: Every day, families have to learn to listen and understand one another, to walk together, to face conflicts and difficulties. It is a daily challenge and it is overcome with the right attitude, through simple actions, simple gestures, caring for the details of our relationships. And this too helps us a lot in order to talk within the family, talk at table, dialogue between parents and children, dialogue among siblings. It helps us experience our family roots that come from our grandparents. Dialogue with the grandparents!
-->And how is this done? Let us look to Mary, who in today’s Gospel says to Jesus: “Your father and I have been searching for you” (v. 48). Your father and I; it does not say, I and your father. Before the “I”, comes “you”! Let us learn this: before the “I”, there’s “you”. In my language, there is an adjective for people who put the “I” before the “you”: “Me, myself and I, for myself and my own good”. People who are like this — first “I” and then “you”. No, in the Holy Family, first “you” and then “I”. In order to protect harmony in the family, the dictatorship of the “I” has to be fought — when the “I” inflates. It is dangerous when, rather than listening to one another, we blame one another for mistakes; when, rather than showing care for each other, we become fixated on our own needs; when, instead of dialoguing, we isolate ourselves with our mobile phones. It is sad to see a family at dinner, with everyone on their mobile phone, not speaking to each other; everyone speaking on their own phones; when we mutually accuse each other, always repeating the same phrases, restaging an old scene in which each person wants to be right and that always ends in cold silence, that sharp, cold silence, after a family discussion. This is horrible, really horrible! I repeat a piece of advice: in the evening, when everything is over, always make peace. Never go to bed without making peace, otherwise there will be a “cold war” the next day! And this is dangerous because it initiates a series of scoldings, a series of resentments. How often, unfortunately, do conflicts originate and grow within the domestic walls due to prolonged periods of silence and unchecked selfishness! Sometimes it even ends up in physical and moral violence. This lacerates harmony and kills the family. Let us convert ourselves from “I” to “you”. What must be most important in a family is “you”. And please, each day, let us pray a little bit together — if you can make the effort — to ask God for the gift of peace in the family. And let us all commit ourselves — parents, children, Church, civil society — to sustain, defend and safeguard the family which is our treasure!
May the Virgin Mary, the spouse of Joseph, the mother of Jesus, protect our families.
From FAUSTI - Three times yearly, the celebrations recall the pilgrims to Jerusalem: for Easter, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Those who are far from Jerusalem can only go there once. Jesus enters into the obedience of His Family to the law of the Lord and goes to celebrate His Easter. He had already been to the Temple 12 years before to be offered to God (2:22). Now he comes back. Up to the age of 13 the child is a child of his parents who have received him as a gift. They have to teach him the Word that makes him son of God, the sole Father. From the age of 12 to 13 there is an apprenticeship that is definitive and then becomes an adult, "son of the law". who, like his parents, is called to know and fulfill the Will of God. Man becomes the Word that he listens. This has the power to generate him to a truly human life, that makes him free and responsible, capable of entering into dialogue with God. Some are never adult and free, but always remain small, in dialogue only with their exigencies. Jesus fulfils the obligation of the pilgrimage one year in advance, moved by the same desire that will push Him to Jerusalem to celebrate His Easter. His entire life will be an ascent, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where His Wisdom necessarily leads Him and keeps Him, always to being Son in obedience to the Father. The story anticipates the "Easter journey" of Jesus. Luke, after having outlined His prehistory through the fundamental lines of the promise, traces with vigorous perspective a plan of His future, revealing to us the Madness of His Wisdom, which will lead Him to the powerlessness that saves us. The three days of being in hiding in Jerusalem are the prelude to His death and resurrection. When the Easter days are ended, Jesus does not turn back. The others will have to go back to meet Him. But the mystery of His resisting in Jerusalem is not recognized by His parents. They cannot not think that He is in the "journey with the others". but His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts (Is 55:8). Jesus is not among the parents according to the flesh, because His parents are "those who listen to the Word of God" (8:21). The lost Son is "found" after three days in the Temple, in the Glory of God, "seated", now at the end of the fatigue, which solemnly teaches in the Word of God those who were the teachers of the Word. He, the Servant who resists three days in Jerusalem, is Wisdom who questions and answers to the promise of God. When they see Him, they are " deeply affected " and they tell Him all the sorrow of the loss and the anxiety of the search. Jesus does not reproach for the search. He reproachs for the way, precisely those who "do not know" and do not understand Father's plan. The first and final Word of Jesus is "Father". The paternity of God makes for inclusion of the whole Gospel. He "must" care for the things of the Father, because He is the Son who listens and answers for what the Father has said. Things of the Father" represent His Will, in which the obedient Son lives at home, to the point of being He the Word of the Father. In His pilgrimage, definitively concluded beside the Father whom He listens to and to whom He responds, the path that leads us to the Glory from which we departed, is open to us. Mary, who still does not understand, is model of the Church: "she preserves through time" these sayings, like a seed that will grow. Like her, the catechumen does not immediately understand the great mystery of Jesus' three days with the Father. And like her, he keeps the words in heart, learns them by memory, even if their understanding still escapes him. In this constant remembrance of the Word received, the heart gradually illuminates itself in the knowledge of the Lord.
1st book of Samuel 1,20-22.24-28.
RispondiEliminaShe conceived, and at the end of her term bore a son whom she called Samuel, since she had asked the LORD for him.
The next time her husband Elkanah was going up with the rest of his household to offer the customary sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vows,
Hannah did not go, explaining to her husband, "Once the child is weaned, I will take him to appear before the LORD and to remain there forever; I will offer him as a perpetual nazirite."
Once he was weaned, she brought him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh.
After the boy's father had sacrificed the young bull, Hannah, his mother, approached Eli
and said: "Pardon, my lord! As you live my lord, I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD." She left Samuel there.
Psalms 84(83),2-3.5-6.9-10.
How lovely your dwelling, O LORD of hosts!
My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and flesh cry out for the living God.
Blessed are they who dwell in your house!
Continually they praise you.
Happy the men whose strength you are!
Their hearts are set upon the pilgrimage.
O LORD of hosts, hear our prayer;
hearken, O God of Jacob!
O God, behold our shield,
and look upon the face of your anointed.
First Letter of John 3,1-2.21-24.
Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Beloved, if (our) hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God
and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.
Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit that he gave us.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 2,41-52.
Each year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.
After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.
Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions,
and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.
When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety."
And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY OF NAZARETH
RispondiEliminaPOPE FRANCIS
ANGELUS 26 December 2021
Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth. God chose a humble and simple family by which to come into our midst. Let us contemplate in amazement the beauty of this mystery, also highlighting two concrete aspects for our families.
The first: the family is the story from which we originate. Each of us has our own story. None of us was born magically, with a magic wand. Each of us has our own story and the family is the story from which we originate. The Gospel of today’s liturgy reminds us that Jesus too is the son of a family story. We see him travelling to Jerusalem with Mary and Joseph for the Passover; then he makes his Mum and Dad worry when they cannot find him; found again, he returns home with them (cf. Lk 2:41-51). It is beautiful to see Jesus inserted into the fabric of familial affections, which were born and grew in the caresses and concerns of his parents. This is important for us as well: we come from a story that was woven with bonds of love, and the person we are today was born not so much out of the material goods that we enjoyed, but from the love that we received, from the love in the heart of the family. We may not have been born into an exceptional family without problems, but this is our story — everyone must think: this is my story — these are our roots: if we cut them off, life dries up! God did not create us to be lone rangers, but to walk together. Let us thank him and pray to him for our families. God thinks about us and wants us to be together: grateful, united, capable of preserving our roots. And we have to think about this, about our own story.
The second aspect: we learn how to be a family, each day. In the Gospel, we see that even in the Holy Family things did not all go well: there were unexpected problems, anxiety, suffering. The Holy Family of holy cards does not exist. Mary and Joseph lose Jesus and search for him anxiously, only to find him three days later. And when, seated among the teachers in the Temple, he responds that he had to be about his Father’s business, they do not understand. They need time to learn to know their son. So it is with us too: Every day, families have to learn to listen and understand one another, to walk together, to face conflicts and difficulties. It is a daily challenge and it is overcome with the right attitude, through simple actions, simple gestures, caring for the details of our relationships. And this too helps us a lot in order to talk within the family, talk at table, dialogue between parents and children, dialogue among siblings. It helps us experience our family roots that come from our grandparents. Dialogue with the grandparents!
-->And how is this done? Let us look to Mary, who in today’s Gospel says to Jesus: “Your father and I have been searching for you” (v. 48). Your father and I; it does not say, I and your father. Before the “I”, comes “you”! Let us learn this: before the “I”, there’s “you”. In my language, there is an adjective for people who put the “I” before the “you”: “Me, myself and I, for myself and my own good”. People who are like this — first “I” and then “you”. No, in the Holy Family, first “you” and then “I”. In order to protect harmony in the family, the dictatorship of the “I” has to be fought — when the “I” inflates. It is dangerous when, rather than listening to one another, we blame one another for mistakes; when, rather than showing care for each other, we become fixated on our own needs; when, instead of dialoguing, we isolate ourselves with our mobile phones. It is sad to see a family at dinner, with everyone on their mobile phone, not speaking to each other; everyone speaking on their own phones; when we mutually accuse each other, always repeating the same phrases, restaging an old scene in which each person wants to be right and that always ends in cold silence, that sharp, cold silence, after a family discussion. This is horrible, really horrible! I repeat a piece of advice: in the evening, when everything is over, always make peace. Never go to bed without making peace, otherwise there will be a “cold war” the next day! And this is dangerous because it initiates a series of scoldings, a series of resentments. How often, unfortunately, do conflicts originate and grow within the domestic walls due to prolonged periods of silence and unchecked selfishness! Sometimes it even ends up in physical and moral violence. This lacerates harmony and kills the family. Let us convert ourselves from “I” to “you”. What must be most important in a family is “you”. And please, each day, let us pray a little bit together — if you can make the effort — to ask God for the gift of peace in the family. And let us all commit ourselves — parents, children, Church, civil society — to sustain, defend and safeguard the family which is our treasure!
RispondiEliminaMay the Virgin Mary, the spouse of Joseph, the mother of Jesus, protect our families.
From FAUSTI - Three times yearly, the celebrations recall the pilgrims to Jerusalem: for Easter, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Those who are far from Jerusalem can only go there once. Jesus enters into the obedience of His Family to the law of the Lord and goes to celebrate His Easter.
RispondiEliminaHe had already been to the Temple 12 years before to be offered to God (2:22). Now he comes back.
Up to the age of 13 the child is a child of his parents who have received him as a gift. They have to teach him the Word that makes him son of God, the sole Father. From the age of 12 to 13 there is an apprenticeship that is definitive and then becomes an adult, "son of the law". who, like his parents, is called to know and fulfill the Will of God.
Man becomes the Word that he listens. This has the power to generate him to a truly human life, that makes him free and responsible, capable of entering into dialogue with God. Some are never adult and free, but always remain small, in dialogue only with their exigencies.
Jesus fulfils the obligation of the pilgrimage one year in advance, moved by the same desire that will push Him to Jerusalem to celebrate His Easter. His entire life will be an ascent, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where His Wisdom necessarily leads Him and keeps Him, always to being Son in obedience to the Father.
The story anticipates the "Easter journey" of Jesus.
Luke, after having outlined His prehistory through the fundamental lines of the promise, traces with vigorous perspective a plan of His future, revealing to us the Madness of His Wisdom, which will lead Him to the powerlessness that saves us. The three days of being in hiding in Jerusalem are the prelude to His death and resurrection.
When the Easter days are ended, Jesus does not turn back.
The others will have to go back to meet Him.
But the mystery of His resisting in Jerusalem is not recognized by His parents. They cannot not think that He is in the "journey with the others". but His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts (Is 55:8).
Jesus is not among the parents according to the flesh, because His parents are "those who listen to the Word of God" (8:21).
The lost Son is "found" after three days in the Temple, in the Glory of God, "seated", now at the end of the fatigue, which solemnly teaches in the Word of God those who were the teachers of the Word.
He, the Servant who resists three days in Jerusalem, is Wisdom who questions and answers to the promise of God.
When they see Him, they are " deeply affected " and they tell Him all the sorrow of the loss and the anxiety of the search. Jesus does not reproach for the search. He reproachs for the way, precisely those who "do not know" and do not understand Father's plan.
The first and final Word of Jesus is "Father". The paternity of God makes for inclusion of the whole Gospel.
He "must" care for the things of the Father, because He is the Son who listens and answers for what the Father has said. Things of the Father" represent His Will, in which the obedient Son lives at home, to the point of being He the Word of the Father.
In His pilgrimage, definitively concluded beside the Father whom He listens to and to whom He responds, the path that leads us to the Glory from which we departed, is open to us.
Mary, who still does not understand, is model of the Church: "she preserves through time" these sayings, like a seed that will grow. Like her, the catechumen does not immediately understand the great mystery of Jesus' three days with the Father.
And like her, he keeps the words in heart, learns them by memory, even if their understanding still escapes him.
In this constant remembrance of the Word received, the heart gradually illuminates itself in the knowledge of the Lord.