Sancta Familia

Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Family (1962 Rite) 11 January 2009

Today, the Feast of the Holy Family, we consider the most basic society, the family. It’s foundation, the only firm base on which it stands, is marriage, true marriage. The Holy Marriage is the way for the Holy Family. That is why Mary and Joseph were betrothed before she was with child. They were legally married. They had the rights of husband and wife, though completely chaste.

Every human person needs one and only one father and one and only one mother, in love with each other in marriage. That is the first and most important need for existence. If the union of man and woman is missing there is no new life. And if that union is other than marital then the family is not complete; we could even say that it is not a family. It all starts with the marriage. “To avoid the confusion with other types of unions based on weak love is something especially urgent today. Only the rock of total and irrevocable love between man and woman is capable of being the foundation of a society that becomes a home for all people.” (Benedict XVI to JPII Institute 11 May 2006)

The Virgin conceived and bore a Son—the Son of God. Not even the Most Blessed and Ever Virgin Mary—the purest woman of all, who never would entertain marital actions, neither in or out of marriage—the very Immaculate Conception herself—with the fullness of grace and the overshadowing power of God, conceiving the Creator of the universe—the very Logic and Meaning of all things—the Word made Flesh—not even they: the perfect Mother and daughter of the world and of God, with God in the flesh—the God child—are alone a family. Alone they would have been missing the man of the family. The Family needs the dedicated man. Every family, in order to be a family needs the husband and father. Marriage is therefore the start of the family; it was so at the Creation of the world: Adam and Eve, and it was so at the Salvation of the world: Mary and Joseph, and it will be so until the end of the world; and it will be so in eternity (as recorded in the last chapters of the Bible): “Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb…And I say the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband…Come, I will show thee the bride, the spouse of the Lamb.” (Rev. 19:9; 21:2, 9)

Tell people. Talk about it! Defend and promote the integrity of marriage as the only proper context of marital and procreative love. A single parent is not a family! And two so-called “mommies” or “two daddies” are a disgraceful and shameful lie and certainly not a family! but the exact opposite of a family; it’s destruction and an anti-God institution. Lobby our legislators for a constitutional amendment: defining marriage exclusively one man and one woman. On the offensive I encourage you to begin a movement to oppose co-ed college dormitory life. The present college bedroom scene openly promotes fornication, contraception and abortion: the anarchy of sexual license, a scandal to all of our youth. No male should be allowed in the bedroom areas of the females and vice-versa, and that needs to be strictly enforced, for the safety, integrity, well-being and true education of our youth. The gravest problem on our college campuses is neither drinking nor drugs but rather this general sexual immorality systematically corrupting the youth and destroying their affective and emotional capacity for life-long marriage, linked to the rejection of God and His commandments.

“Dear brothers and sisters, [the] profound bond between God and man, between the love of God and human love, is also confirmed by some negative tendencies and developments, whose weight we all experience. The degradation of human love, the suppression of the authentic capacity to love appears in our time as the most effective weapon for man to crush God to remove God from man’s sight and heart. (cf. Rom. 1) However, the desire to ‘liberate’ God’s nature makes one lose sight of the very reality of nature, including man’s nature, reducing it to an ensemble of functions, which can be disposed of according to one’s pleasure to build a so-called better world and a happier humanity. But, on the contrary, the plan of the Creator is destroyed as is the truth of our nature.” (9 June 2005 Rome Congress, Benedict XVI)

Family is man and woman in one flesh (though, by a special divine dispensation, the Holy Family never had flesh union). Marriage, holy marriage, is the family; nothing else, and every other good thing is derived from it. It is the best image of God in the world. This is God’s plan and no man can change that. That is why the best image for Christmas is the child with his Mother and with her lawful husband. The feast of the Holy Family is therefore the Feast of the Holy Matrimony—the Feast of the necessary holiness of man and woman, husband and wife, who give themselves to each other for life and for new life.