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Saint Francis of Assisi

October 4th, 2010

"Let the little children come to me"
Mark 2 : 22

In the first part of to-day’’s Gospel we hear Jesus proclaim the dignity of marriage and this is followed by a well known picture of Him welcoming and embracing little children. Parents who are faithful to one another and who bring up their children in a secure loving environment are a great blessing for the Church and for society.

The story is told that when St. Pius X met his mother after being elected Pope he offered her his Papal ring to kiss. But the mother holding out her own marriage ring proudly said, “Don””t forget without my ring you wouldn””t be wearing yours.” How right she was! It is our parents who first bring us to Jesus in the Sacrament of Baptism and teach us by the example of their lives to come to know Him as our best friend.

Prayer


Prayer: Lord we thank you for all Christian parents who bring their children to you in the Sacraments and nurture their faith in a loving, secure and happy environment. May your Holy Family who experienced the joys, sorrows and trials of family life be our inspiration and model and our source of strength in difficult times. May Jesus, Mary and Joseph be always with us. Amen.

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Just a Thought

How the Holy Family prayer: A Reflection by Pope Benedict XVI

“I would like to invite you to reflect on the place of prayer in the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The home of Nazareth, in fact, is a school of prayer where we learn to listen, to ponder and to penetrate the profound meaning of the manifestation of the Son of God, drawing our example from Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

Pope Paul VI during his visit to Nazareth said “we come to understand the need for a spiritual discipline, if we wish to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become disciples of Christ.” And he added: “First, it teaches us silence. Oh! That there would be reborn in us the esteem for silence, that wonderful and indispensable atmosphere of the spirit: while we are deafened by so many noises, sounds and clamorous voices in the frantic and tumultuous times of modern life. Oh! Silence of Nazareth, teach us to be resolute in good thoughts, intent upon the interior life, ready to listen well to the secret inspirations of God and the exhortations of the true masters.”

We can glean several insights on the Holy Family’s prayer and relationship with God from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ childhood. We may begin with the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. St. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph, “when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, brought the child up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”(2:22). Like every observant Jewish family, Jesus’ parents go up to the temple to consecrate the firstborn son to God and to offer sacrifice. Moved by fidelity to the law’s prescriptions, they set off from Bethlehem and go up to Jerusalem with Jesus, who is now forty days old. Instead of a one-year-old lamb, they present the offering of simple families; that is two young pigeons. The Holy Family’s pilgrimage is one of faith, of the offering of gifts, a symbol of prayer, and of encounter with the Lord, whom Mary and Joseph already see in the son Jesus.”

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