Family
Celebrating the Year of Amoris Laetitia Family
“Holy Family of Nazareth, make us once more mindful of the sacredness and inviolability of the family and its beauty in God’s plan.”
(Amoris Laetitia, 325)
Pope Francis announced the year of “Amoris Laetitia Family during his Angelus Message on the Feast of the Holy Family on December 27, 2020. He ended his address invoking the Blessed Mother, “May the Virgin Mary grant that families throughout the world be increasingly fascinated by the evangelical ideal of the Holy Family, so as to become a leaven of [a] new humanity and of a genuine and universal solidarity.”
Prayer to the Holy Family
O Holy Family of Nazareth, community of love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, model and ideal of every Christian family, to you we entrust our families. Open the heart of every family to the faith, to welcoming the Word of God, to Christian witness, so that it becomes a source of new and holy vocations. Touch the hearts of parents, so that with prompt charity, wise care, and loving devotion they be for their sons and daughters sure guides towards spiritual and eternal values. Stir up the hearts of young people a right conscience and a free will, so that growing in “wisdom, age and grace,” they might welcome generously the gift of a Divine vocation. Holy Family of Nazareth, grant that all of us, contemplating and imitating the assiduous prayer, generous obedience, dignified poverty and virginal purity lived out in your midst, might set about fulfilling the will of God and accompanying with far-sighted sensitivity those among us who are called to follow more closely the Lord Jesus, who “has given Himself for us” (cf. Gal 2:20).
Amen!
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In the family, children first learn about God, love, and the Church. Mothers and fathers are indispensable in sharing the faith with their children. When parents practice and live their Catholic faith, children receive a sure foundation to assist them in difficult life choices. As parents and families learn and live their faith, they grow in confidence in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Church and are nourished by the sacraments and desire to share. The family has an invaluable role in passing on the faith in a joyful and bold manner. Children will learn that they are members of the Body of Christ and have a valuable role in the Church. – Read more from the USCCB
Celebrate the Year of St. Joseph
With the Apostolic Letter “Patris corde” (“With a Father’s Heart”), Pope Francis recalls the 150th anniversary of the declaration of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church. To mark the occasion, the Holy Father has proclaimed a “Year of Saint Joseph” from December 8, 2020 to December 8, 2021.
