He writes, at the school of the Holy Family, we learn that we must develop “spiritual discipline if we wish to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become disciples of Christ”. Notice, how the holy father connects discipline and discipleship. We cannot have discipleship without discipline. In our prayer lives, that means developing and sticking to a routine, a habit of prayer, no matter how we feel, marking the hours of the day, the household duties, the meals, rising and waking, with prayer, praying perhaps before speaking when a conflict arises, praying in times of great joy—turning as a family, to the holy family for blessings and graces and guidance.
Pope Benedict writes, that we must learn also from the Holy Family’s practice of silence. “Silence”, he says, “is the wonderful and indispensable spiritual atmosphere, in which the Word can be reborn within us! Whereas we are deafened by the noise and discordant voices in the frenetic, turbulent life of our time. O silence of Nazareth! He prays, teach us to be steadfast in good thoughts, attentive to our inner life, ready to hear God’s hidden inspiration clearly and the exhortations of true teachers”
Our day, like the day of the holy family, should be infused with silence.
It’s in silence, that we like Our Lady are able to cherish and ponder Christ. He writes, “Mary was a peerless model of the contemplation of Christ. The face of the Son belonged to her in a special way because he had been knit together in her womb and had taken a human likeness from her. No one has contemplated Jesus as diligently as Mary. The gaze of her heart was already focused on him at the moment of the Annunciation, when she conceived him through the action of the Holy Spirit; in the following months she gradually became [more deeply] aware of his presence, until, on the day of his birth, her eyes could look with motherly tenderness upon the face of her son as she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in the manger.
Memories of Jesus, imprinted on her mind and on her heart, marked every instant of Mary’s existence. She lived with her eyes fixed on Christ and cherished his every word. St Luke says: “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (as we heard in the Gospel today) and thus describes Mary’s approach to the Mystery of the Incarnation which was to extend throughout her life: keeping these things, pondering on them in her heart.
St. Joseph too, teaches us. Pope Benedict wrote: Joseph fulfilled every aspect of his paternal role. He must certainly have taught Jesus to pray, together with Mary. In particular Joseph himself must have taken Jesus to the Synagogue for the rites of the Sabbath, as well as to Jerusalem for the great feasts of the people of Israel. Joseph, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, would have led the prayers at home both every day — in the morning, in the evening, at meals — and on the principal religious feasts. In the rhythm of the days he spent at Nazareth, in the simple home and in Joseph’s workshop, Jesus learned to alternate prayer and work, as well as to offer God his labour in earning the bread the family needed.
Pope Benedict draws several lessons in particular from today’s Gospel. He writes, “Jewish families, like Christian families, pray in the intimacy of the home but they also pray together with the community, recognizing that they belong to the People of God, journeying on; and the pilgrimage expresses exactly this state of the People of God on the move (journeying to God together).” So vibrant personal prayer lives, contemplating the face of Christ, cherishing christ in our hearts like our Lady, is important. Ordering our family life, our professional life in a godly way, and infusing them with prayer, like St. Joseph is indispensable. But also the Holy Family models communal prayer. Our corporate worship together as the family of God, the Church, is so powerful and essential to who we are. We join together in prayer at holy Mass, a foretaste of the saint’s communal worship of God in heaven.
But then, the Holy Father draws our attention to the words of Jesus in the Gospel. They are first words of Our Lord recorded in the Gospels, and Benedict writes, After three days spent looking for him his parents found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions (cf. 2:46). His answer to the question of why he had done this to mary and joseph was that he had only done what the Son should do, that is, to be with his Father. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Benedict says, “note the resonance that hearing this word “Father” on Jesus’ lips must have had in the hearts of Mary and Joseph…We may imagine that from this time the life of the Holy Family must have been even fuller of prayer since from the heart of Jesus the boy — then an adolescent and a young man — this deep meaning of the relationship with God the Father would not cease to spread and to be echoed in the hearts of Mary and Joseph…The Family of Nazareth became the first model of the Church in which, around the presence of Jesus and through his mediation, everyone experiences the filial relationship with God the Father which also transforms interpersonal, human relationships.”
The dear departed Pope Benedict knew the important of Christians families looking to and modeling their family life after the Holy Family. He wrote, “the Holy Family is the icon of the domestic Church, called to pray together. The family is the domestic Church and must be the first school of prayer. It is in the family that children, from the tenderest age, can learn to perceive the meaning of God, also thanks to the teaching and example of their parents: to live in an atmosphere marked by God’s presence.”
May the Holy Family guide and protect us always, and may the soul of God’s servant, Pope Benedict XVI, through the mercy of God rest in peace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
A reading from the epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians
Brethren: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
A continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke
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.
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