Study of the Readings
Ed. by
Joyce Ann Zimmerman,
et al
• Words, Phrases
• To the point
• First Two Readings
• Experience
Dennis
Hamm, SJ
It Takes a Covenant to Raise a Family
When we think of Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus in splendid, nuclear isolation, we forget [that] no family in first-century Palestine lived disconnected from their network of relatives.
John Kavanaugh, SJ
It is fitting that the holiness of the family also be celebrated at this time. For it is only by the ordinariness of being born, nurtured, and taught, so frail and dependent upon those who have welcomed us into their lives, that we ever grow in strength and grace.
John J. Pilch
Defining the family is never easy. The challenge was no different in the ancient world than it is in modern cultures. Even more difficult is deciding what kind of family is good and decent, and what kind of family is not.
He first became the salvation of the people and not of one people only but of many, indeed of all peoples and of the whole world. Christ thus became the light of revelation to the Gentiles, but he is also the glory of Israel.
Reginald H. Fuller
The Holy Family is the paradigm for all Christian family life, for the Christian family is the divinely provided context in which the Christian child may grow to physical, mental, and spiritual maturity.