The Family: A Reflection of the Father's Infinite Love

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(Editor’s note: This is one in a series on the theology of the family in preparation for the 10th World Meeting of Families, which will take place June 24-26. The worldwide meeting will take place in Rome; Bishop Oscar A. Solis has asked parishes throughout the Diocese of Salt Lake City to host activities to increase awareness of the importance of the vocation of marriage and family life.)

Contemplating the family life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph may seem a strange exercise in prayer. After all, the Bible tells us next to nothing about the years between the birth at Bethlehem and the baptism in the Jordan. We have only one story about that time: St. Luke’s Gospel tells us that, when Jesus was 12, his parents took him to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, and upon their return they “looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances.”

Not finding their son, Mary and Joseph retraced their steps and after three days found Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. About the next years in Nazareth, St. Luke tells us, “Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”

From this and other details in the Gospel, we gain an understanding of the Holy Family that allows us to develop a model to follow.  

“In observing Jesus’ family, Joseph and Mary, every family can rediscover its own call, and can begin to understand itself a little better, to orient itself on life’s journey and feel drawn to the joy of the Gospel,” states “Nazareth: Rendering love normal,” the third in the catechesis series by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life in preparation for the 10th World Meeting of Families.

“It is important not to forget that the Son of God, who became man, lived for many years within a normal and humble human family,” the catechesis continues. “It is precisely in the humble and normal realities that the Lord longs to become part and establish himself.”

Our family teaches us our first lessons about love, about values, about relating to other people. In the home “one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous – even repeated – forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one’s life,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

A Christian family also is called to educate its children “to full human and Christian maturity,” Pope John Paul II notes in his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World).

“In fact, as an educating community, the family must help man to discern his own vocation and to accept responsibility in the search for greater justice, educating him from the beginning in interpersonal relationships, rich in justice and in love,” he adds.

Yet “no family drops down from heaven perfectly formed,” Pope Francis acknowledges in his 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Lætitia (On Love and the Family).

For families, constantly growing in the ability to love “is a never-ending vocation born of the full communion of the Trinity, the profound unity between Christ and his Church, the loving community which is the Holy Family of Nazareth, and the pure fraternity existing among the saints of heaven,” the pope continues. This growth allows people “to stop demanding of our interpersonal relationships a perfection, a purity of intentions and a consistency which we will only encounter in the Kingdom to come. It also keeps us from judging harshly those who live in situations of frailty.”

Pope Francis urges each person to “keep striving towards something greater than ourselves and our families. … Let us make this journey as families, let us keep walking together.”

Contemplating “the covenant of love and fidelity lived by the Holy Family of Nazareth” enables families “better to face the vicissitudes of life and history,” Amoris Lætitia states. “On this basis, every family, despite its weaknesses, can become a light in the darkness of the world.”

All families face challenges, even the Holy Family, Pope Francis said in his Dec 27, 2021 Angelus address.

Referring to the incident where the 12-year-old Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, Pope Francis pointed out that Mary and Joseph didn’t understand their son’s reply when he told them that he must be in his Father’s house.

“They need time to learn to know their son,” he said. “That’s the way it is with us as well: Each day, a family needs to learn how to listen to each other to understand each other, to walk together, to face conflicts and difficulties.”

All members of a family are responsible for helping to build the communion of the family, Amoris Lætitia states, but this requires “a ready and generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation. There is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion: hence there arise the many and varied forms of division in family life.”

To receive the grace to overcome divisions, family members should partake regularly of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, Amoris Lætitia states.

Although the common definition of family limits relationships to those of blood, Christ himself taught that “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt 12:50). He also specified that those who are hungry, or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison are his brothers and sisters when he said, “As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me” (Matt 25:40).

As Catholics, the unconditional love offered by Jesus as our brother and God as our father is a model we are called to imitate in our own families and communities. “When a family is welcoming and reaches out to others, especially the poor and the neglected, it is ‘a symbol, witness and participant in the Church’s motherhood,’” states Amoris Lætitia, quoting John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio.

“Social love, as a reflection of the Trinity, is what truly unifies the spiritual meaning of the family and its mission to others, for it makes present the kerygma in all its communal imperatives,” Amoris Lætitia continues. “The family lives its spirituality precisely by being at one and the same time a domestic church and a vital cell for transforming the world.”

Reflection Questions

1. Who are the members of my family?

2. What special gifts does each member bring to the family?

3. How do we help each other as family?

4. How do we deal with conflict within the family?

5. How does my family extend fraternity into the community?