Feast of Holy Family: The Family And Responsible Parenthood.

By Rev. Fr Thomas Oyode

Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

1. The joy of Christmas is too great to be celebrated in one day. Hence, like Easter, Christmas day celebration is spread across eight days, or what the liturgy calls the Octave days of Christmas. The last of these days is January 1, where we shall celebrate the feast of Mary, Mother of God. There are several other feasts that dot these octave days. 

We cannot fail to see the significance of these feasts for Christmas. Apart from the fact that all liturgical feasts are Christ centred, these feasts also have a special meaning for our Christmas celebration. What does the presence of the baby Jesus in our midst call for? It calls us to witness, to accept him as a gift and be ready to give ourselves to him as a gift. The feast of the first christian martyr, St. Stephen on December 26, and that of the Holy Innocents on December 28 remind us of this fact. We are able to give ourselves to him in martyrdom because we have seen him and can behold him (1 John 1:1-3). The feast of St. John the Evangelist  on December 27 who exemplifies the model of purity tells us that it is the pure in heart that can see God (Matt. 5:8). As December 27 falls on a Sunday this year, John the Evangelist's feast gives way to the feast of the Holy Family which is ordinarily celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas. Even though we are not celebrating the feast of St. John this year, we cannot forget the significance of the life of this great evangelist that Scripture often describes as the disciple whom the Lord loves (John 13:23, 21:7).

2. The baby Jesus is in our midst! He has taken the form of human nature in order to assume all that is human and redeem it. Hence he came to us through a family. This is the fact that we celebrate today on the feast of the Holy Family. His coming to us through the human family falls under the specific aim of the incarnation which we state in the creed as "for us men and for our salvation." Christ's coming through the human family reaffirms the natural fact that the family is constituted from marriage. Hence our reflection on the family of Jesus must begin with a consideration of the marital union that founds the Family.

3. The New Testament begins by introducing Joseph and Mary as a couple who were betrothed or engaged. Then suddenly Joseph found Mary to be with a child even before their marital union. The one whom scripture describes as a man of honour wanted to divorce Mary quietly for a suspected case of adultery. But under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Joseph understood and accepted that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit. With this conviction, he took her as wife (Matt. 1: 1-25). In this narrative, we find the fundamental elements of marriage: Its foundation and actualisation is both natural and divine. The betrothal of  Mary to Joseph explains the natural element of marriage rooted in the creation story of genesis, where the man and the woman were ordained to become one flesh (Gen. 2:24, Matt. 2:28). The inspiration of the Holy Spirit that eventually led to the actualisation of the union between Joseph and Mary, against all odds, expresses the divine element of marriage. Ultimately, the marital union is a covenant between God and man. Couples promise to marry each other in obedience to a vocation, a call from God, which Joseph heeded. 

4. The purpose of this union is for companionship and procreation. Joseph took Mary as wife (companionship) in order to welcome the baby Jesus (procreation). What is particularly significant about this is that these two purposes of companionship and procreation are inseparable. One cannot marry only for the sake of companionship while excluding procreation, nor can one marry only for the sake of procreation, while excluding companionship. Hence the true Christian family must be distinguished by its openness to life, an openness to life that is inseparable from responsible parenthood.

5. The Church' teaching on openness to life and even encouraging couples to be ready to raise a large family has often been misunderstood. It is often rejected by what it does not mean. Some take the call to be open to life and be ready to raise a large family as implying a call to irresponsible parenthood, that is, to have children without any plan on how to take care of them. A couple who decides to have children without a plan of how to take care of them must seriously consider whether they see the children as gifts. If something is a gift, I must show my appreciation for that gift by the way I care for it. This is why openness to life must be linked to responsible parenthood. 

6. Responsible parenthood must first be understood in relation to procreation. Only God can create. Procreation is God's invitation to the couple to be a partner in his act of creation. This is rooted in its very meaning: pro-creation: to join God in creating; to be God's instrument in bringing children into the world. Hence the key element in procreation is seeing children as gifts from God.  The opposite of seeing children as gifts is to see them as commodities. This is why a certain common sense of perceiving children as commodities underlines, on the one hand, the mentality of those who simply want to have children as if they are properties, and on the other hand, those who do not want to have children, and are not generous in accepting children from God. In the first instance, which is more common with traditional societies, children are perceived as commodities because they are considered to be part of personal wealth. In the second instance, which is more common today, children are seen as commodities that are too expensive to have. They are therefore rejected for that reason. 

7. While changed social and economic contexts affects the number of children parents want and can have, the real problem in not seeing children as gifts is a failure to respect the place of God in procreation. On judgement day, every couple must be ready to give an answer to the promise they made on their wedding day, that is, the promise to be ready to accept the children that God will give to them. As God always wants us to carry out his will using our reason and by exercising our responsibility, every married couple must examine how they live up to this promise by asking themselves, whether they have accepted the children God wills to give to them according to their capacity and circumstance. 

This concretely means that married couples, in their responsibility of procreation, must seek harmony between two facts: the promise at their wedding to be ready to accept the children that God will give them and their capacity to take care of the children. The inseparable link between openness to life and responsible parenthood provides the best context for realising this harmony. This means that couples should endeavour to be as open as possible to the number of children they can take care of. It means a couple should not be content with having two children, for example, when they can take care of three of four, or to have four when they can accept five or six. In procreation, and the decision to have children, the couple must stand before God, and take their decisions in the presence of God. Parents should have a plan for raising children. Fidelity and generosity in this case means that they should be ready to plan as big as possible. In this generous plan, they dispose themselves to God's will in inviting them to join him in the act of creation. The tendency not to be ready to make any sacrifice to raise a large family, according to one's circumstance,  might mean a lack of generosity to God, a lack of disposition to his will, in case he wants to use the couple to bring more children into the world. It is, therefore, wrong for any government legislation to take over or undermine this responsibility of the couple.

8.  Responsible parenthood also means that legitimate reasons to space children, which could be economic, social or medical does not justify any means of birth control. There must be respect for the natural means that God has put in place.