"let the peace of Christ control your hearts"/The Holy Family - Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

+JMJ+

 A beautiful gift for this feast of the Holy Family!  A live nativity from 5 years ago with baby Romeo sweetly revealing a sweet gift of LIFE, Jesus, for us with Mary and Simon (Joseph).   The loving family unit that they reveal to the world, and where we can go for prayers for our families!

Both Pat and I come from huge families so the prayers are huge for our parents (Pat's both gone, and mine still together at 94 and 90), and our many siblings and their growing family.  Pat's family is awaiting the arrival of 3 new little ones and my parents have added many recently including our 3 grandsons within 6 weeks and now 3 more to get them up to 59 great-grands!  LIFE is abundant!
 Grandson, David, lighting the candles before mass was such a beautiful picture of the LIGHT coming into the world and our families blessed by The Holy Family!

Family is the domestic Church where we share our Faith with JOY!  It is where we grow and share the LOVE that we are given by our Lord, Mary and Joseph.  The readings today were amazing!
Colossians 3
Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another,
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
with gratitude in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.  

So much in these amazing Spirit filled words from St Paul today!  I had to share it all!!!  I loved Father Todd's homily where he numerous times said; "In the Churches wisdom" we have this feast today for families and how we can look to Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

The preparation to share Jesus in Word, Body and Blood!  Our delight and to share it with family each week is the best!

 Joy is so loving to her baby Jude, and he delights in her!

 I loved seeing 2 1/2 year old Joy watching her brother, Dave, putting out the candles after mass.

As we were reading the Gospel today Ruth would smile over at Rose each time they mentioned that the angel directed Joseph in numerous dreams to go here or there, and "Joseph rose" and later,."He rose" and went to Nazareth.  So much specialness when you are paying attention to the words and take them personally to heart!

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

533 The hidden life at Nazareth allows everyone to enter into fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life:

The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin to understand the life of Jesus - the school of the Gospel. First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us. . . A lesson on family life. May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character... A lesson of work. Nazareth, home of the "Carpenter's Son", in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work. . . To conclude, I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their great pattern their brother who is God. (Pope Paul VI at Nazareth, January 5, 1964)

534 The finding of Jesus in the temple is the only event that breaks the silence of the Gospels about the hidden years of Jesus (Lk 2: 41-52). Here Jesus lets us catch a glimpse of the mystery of his total consecration to a mission that flows from His divine Sonship: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's work?" (Lk 2:49) Mary and Joseph did not understand these words, but they accepted them in faith. Mary "kept all these things in her heart" during the years Jesus remained hidden in the silence of an ordinary life.

Holy Family of Nazareth, help us to willingly enter the hidden life of Nazareth, the school of Nazareth, that allows us to enter into 

 fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life. 

Holy Family of Nazareth, pray for us.  Amen.

Holy Family of Nazareth, pray for us!

CONSIDER THIS:  

Perhaps a 2020 NEW DECADE resolution might include resuming or beginning

the practice of writing/typing JMJ (Jesus, Mary, Joseph) atop

or at the close of your papers (emails) of correspondence. 

It symbolically illustrates a worldview,

a mindset that reminds that we follow an example,

a way that is sanctified and greater than ourselves.

+JMJ+

I will adopt this now... a mindset of putting my life in the hands of the Holy Family and a way that is sanctified!

 Joy looking up to her big brother, who is showing her how to serve and to make your faith your own by service!

Rose with Jude!  He is such a good boy in Church where he has been with his parents every Sunday since he was born!  Rose loves to be called Rose Again since she was about 3 and heard her name in mass - in the Creed - "He rose again from the dead..."  How we smiled when we went out to celebrate the Easter Vigil and Rose was so excited to tell us that she heard her name during the mass!  Now we look at her and smile during the creed.

 Now with some shepherds and sheep from our nativity 5 years ago!  Look at the sweet face of baby Jesus looking up at his Mother, Mary!  So precious!

 Such a wonderful way to start our week by worshiping and sharing family together!  Our hearts are filled with LOVE, PEACE and JOY!  May we carry that peace in our hearts as St Paul speaks to us today of allowing that peace to control our hearts no matter the hurts we receive living closely with our immediate family.  He speaks of forgiving each other as we have been forgiven by Jesus with his unconditional love!  "Wounded, I will never cease to love.' the motto of Hallel's Community of the Lamb is reminding me that no matter what comes my way and the hurts from those the closest to us... we need to return those hurts with love...
"Put on, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do..."
So hard to do, and we need Jesus to accomplish this difficult task and His Spirit dwelling in us allowing us to die to self so that He may live in us and we may be His hands and feet!

 Jude's music makers at breakfast at John and Bobbi's after mass...

 Thinking of Great-grandma with candy,  Pat's mother who left us 3 years ago on Gaudete Sunday... John and Bobbi have her dining table and chairs along with her curio cupboard.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph... may your peace dwell in our hearts in our domestic Church/family so that we may give to them the unconditional LOVE and forgiveness we have been given by you!  May we die to self so that your Holy Spirit may live in us and we may serve without counting the cost.  Thank you for the beauty and wisdom of The Church in our lives and the JOY we receive with each new day filled with Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Jesus in Word and Sacrament, the Saints and Angels in heaven along with our beloved dead waiting for us and praying for us.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Hallelujah

John has a job!!  He is an activity director at an assisted living and memory care unit!  Thank you, Lord, and prayers going forward are appreciated and needed.  Bless-bless, Barb

Happy Feast Day
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, & Joseph,
“contemplating the Holy Family, enables us to appreciate the gift of family intimacy in a special way, & spurs us to offer human warmth & concrete solidarity in those unfortunately numerous situations which, for various reasons, lack peace, harmony, in a word, lack “family”.JPII

From Nancy today with sleeping George on her shoulder
Happy feast of the Holy Family from this family...that is aspiring to be Holy, even though our mass performance today was...rough. #nodonutstoday

John's ongoing journey - now working with elderly and sharing his light!

Danielle Rose - A Mother's Song/ Crucifixion 5th sorrowful mystery of the rosary

Danielle Rose - Holy Family

Go tell it on the mountain by Dolly Parton and family
We sang it as the final hymn today and all the way from Kindergartener Luke on up knew it from the Christmas program this year.  Luke and grandma clapped and a few joined us!  JOY!

+JMJ+

Feast* of the HOLY FAMILY of 

Jesus, Mary and Joseph

*The Sunday between Christmas and New Year's Day.

If both are Sundays, the feast is celebrated on December 30.

May the example of the Holy Family,

with the aid of the Holy Spirit,

guide all families, especially those most troubled,

to be homes of communion and prayer

and to always seek your truth and live in your love.

Through Christ our Lord.  Amen

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pray for us!

World Meeting of Families - Philadelphia 2015

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had only one life,

one purpose: To glorify the Heavenly Father.

That is what we also must want.

To achieve it,

we have to enter into union with Mary and Joseph,

share their life - family life, the intimate interior life

of which God alone is secret.

What happiness to be called to this life. 

Our love will consist in living with Mary and Joseph

on the love of Jesus Eucharistic.”

St. Peter Julian Eymard

 "The family has the mission to

guard, reveal and communicate love,

and this is a living reflection of and a real sharing in God’s love for humanity

and the love of Christ the Lord for the Church, His bride.

Every particular task of the family is an expression

and concrete actuation of that fundamental mission.” - St John Paul II

Home life is the God-appointed training ground 

of human character.  - Archbishop Fulton J Sheen