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THE SUNDAY ANGELUS
On Sunday, the Holy Father led the noontime Angelus as usual at St. Peter's Square, before leaving for the soup kitchen of the Sant'Egidio Community in the Trastevere district, where he sat down to lunch with Sant'Egidio leaders and the homeless who are the regular beneficiaries of this assistance.
Here is what he said in English:
Today we celebrate with joy the Feast of the Holy Family, who shared with us this fundamental human experience.
I pray that the Lord may bless all Christian families and assist them in living their daily life in mutual love and in generosity to others, after the example of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
May Almighty God continue to bless you all with peace and joy during this Christmas Season!
Here is a translation of the Holy Father's little homily before the Marian prayer:
Dear brothers and sisters:
Today is the Sunday of the Holy Family. We can still identify ourselves with the shepherds of Bethlehem, who, upon hearing the announcement of the angels, ran in haste towards the cave in Bethlehem and found "Mary and Joseph and teh Baby ling in a manger" (Lk 2,16).
Let us pause ourselves to contemplate that scene, and let us reflect on its meaning. The first witnesses of the birth of Christ, the shepherds, found themselves not only in front of the Baby Jesus but of a small family: mother, father and a newborn son.
God wished to reveal himself by being born to a human family, and therefore, the human family has become an icon of God! God is Trinity, he is a communion of love, and the family, despite all the difference that exists between the mystery of God and his human creature, is an expression that reflects the unfathomable mystery of God-Love.
Man and woman, created in the image of God, become 'one flesh' in matrimony (Gen 2,23), that is, a communion of love that generates new life. The human family, in a certain sense, is an icon of the Trinity, for its inter-personal love and the fecundity of that love.
The liturgy today offers the famous Gospel episode of the twelve-year-old Jesus who stays behind in the Temple in Jerusalem, unknown to his parents, who, astounded and concerned, found him after three days disputing with the doctors of the Temple.
To his mother who asks him for an explanation, Jesus replies that he must be 'in his Father's house', that is the house of God (cfr Lk 2,49). In this episode, the boy Jesus appears to us full of zeal for God and for his Temple. Let us ask ourselves: From whom did Jesus learn to love the 'things' of his Father?
Certainly, as the Son, he had an intimate knowledge of his Father, of God, a profound and permanent personal relation with Him, but in his concrete culture, he had certainly learned the prayers, love for the Temple and the institutions of Israel from his own parents.
Therefore, we can affirm that the decision of Jesus to stay behind in the Temple was, above all, the result of his intimate relation with the Father, but also of the education he had received from Mary and Joseph.
Here we can see the authentic meaning of Christian education: that it is the fruit of a collaboration that must always be sought between educators and God. The Christian family knows that children are a gift and a plan of God.
That is why, they cannot be considered possessions, but serving in them the plan of God, it is called to educate them to the greatest freedom, which is that of saying Yes to the will of God. The Virgin Mary gives the perfect example of this Yes. Let us entrust to her all families, and pray specially for their precious educational mission.
And now, I will address, in Spanish, those who are taking part in the Feast of the Holy Family in Madrid:
I greet warmly the pastors and faithful who are assembled in Madrid to celebrate the Holy Family with joy. How can we fail to recall the true meaning of this celebration?
God, having come into the world, in the bosom of a family, manifests that this institution is a sure way to meet and know him, as well as a permanent call to work so that everyone is united in love.
Thus, one of the best services that we Christians can do for our contemporaries is to offer them our firm and serene testimony of the family founded on matrimony between a man and a woman, protecting and promoting it, because it is of supreme importance for the present and future of mankind.
Indeed, the family is the best school where one learns to live those values that dignify a person and make peoples great. In it we share our sorrows and joys, feeling that we are all clothed with that love that reigns in a home by the mere fact of being members of the same family.
I pray to God that your homes may always breathe that love of total abandonment and fidelity that Jesus brought to the world with his birth, nourishing and fortifying it with daily prayer, the constant practice of virtues, reciprocal understanding anc mutual respect.
Thus I urge that, trusting in the maternal intercession of the Most Blessed Mary, Queen of Families, and in the powerful protection of St. Joseph, her spouse, you dedicate yourself tirelessly to this beautiful mission that the Lord has placed in your hands.
You may count on my closeness and affection, and I ask you to bring a very special greeting from the Pope to your loved ones and those who are most needy or who find themselves in difficulty. I bless you all from the heart.
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