Feast of the Holy Family

My Dear Parishioners,

The gifts are now open. Some gifts have already been returned, or maybe even re-gifted. However, most of our gifts we will be cherishing for years to come.

By now, most of our Christmas leftovers are gone—or at least we have gotten tired of them! The exception, of course, are the Christmas Cookies; we never grow tired of them, do we? Why do they taste so good? Is it the love that they are made with that makes them taste so good?

I hope everyone had a very enjoyable Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. My family had a fun Christmas here at the rectory. Yes, I did cook, although everyone did bring something. We had plenty of our own leftovers, and they were even better the next day.

Christmas has also been made special by so many of you who have dropped off cards and cookies for the rectory. On behalf of our staff, I thank you for your generosity. Your kindness does warm the heart.

I also thank you for your generosity to the parish. Our Christmas collection helps to keep us going throughout the rest of the year. So, again, on behalf of our staff, I thank you.

I also thank all of those who helped to make our Christmas Masses so special, from those who help to maintain the church, to those who helped to decorate the church, and to those who provided the music, and to those who are always making things happen from behind the scenes. You helped to make our Christmas so joyful and so memorable. Thank you.

Thankfully, our celebration continues. The Nativity is way too big of an event to celebrate in just one day. This is why we have the Octave of Christmas.

During our Octave of Christmas, we observe this weekend’s Feast of the Holy Family.

Our Feast of the Holy Family is a relatively new Feast in the history of our Church. The Feast was first promoted by Pope Benedict XV. Pope Benedict XV feared that the traditional family structure was starting to breakdown, and this was in the 1920s—yes, the 1920s. The Feast was added to the universal calendar by St. Paul VI in the 1960s. With this Feast, we are celebrating the Traditional Family and Traditional Family Values.

Our celebration this weekend affirms that the most basic unit of society is the family. The Blessed Apostle St. Paul teaches us that a family is joined by right relationships governed by love: Brothers and sisters: 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.

St. Paul VI lovingly teaches us that we first turn to the Holy Family for good example: The lesson of domestic life: may Nazareth teach us the meaning of family life, its harmony of love, its simplicity and austere beauty, its sacred and inviolable character; may it teach us how sweet and irreplaceable is its training, how fundamental and incomparable its role on the social plane.

St. John Paul II lovingly warns us that the failure to learn from the Holy Family is our failure: The deepest human problems are connected with the family. It constitutes the primary, fundamental and irreplaceable community for man. “The mission of being the primary vital cell of society has been given to the family by God himself”, the Second Vatican Council affirms. (Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11). The Church wishes to bear a particular witness to that too during the Octave of Christmas, by means of the feast of the Holy Family. She wishes to recall that the fundamental values, which cannot be violated without incalculable harm of a moral nature, are bound up with the family. Material perspectives and the “economico- social” point of view often prevail over the principles of Christian and even human morality. It is not enough, then, to express only regret. It is necessary to defend these fundamental values tenaciously and firmly, because their violation does incalculable harm to society and, in the last analysis, to man. no experience of the different nations in the history of mankind, as well as our contemporary experience, can serve as an argument to reaffirm this painful truth, that is, that it is easy, in the fundamental sphere of human existence in which the role of the family is decisive, to destroy essential values, while it is very difficult to reconstruct these values.

With the Holy Family we celebrate the traditional family structure and traditional family values. Yes, sadly, things do not always go as planned. Divorces do happen, and sin gets in the way of loving and right relationships. Even more sadly, many in our society continue to sow the seeds of confusion and promote lifestyles contrary to the Gospel. Yet, we continue to point ourselves and our society toward the ideal. We continue to encourage all to form homes of true love, true respect, and, most importantly, Holiness. Through, with, and in, Jesus, and the Holy Family, this is all possible.

Our Octave of Christmas concludes with the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, and New Year’s. Mass New Year’s Eve is at 4:00. New Year’s Day Mass is at 8:00 and 10:00.

If I may, on behalf of our staff, I do wish everyone an early very Happy New Year and may the graces of our Octave of Christmas make this coming year a year of truth, love, and Holiness.

Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor