Allocution December 31, 2023

Today, December 31, Holy Family Day, we hear in all the Catholic churches of the world, the gospel according to Saint Luke, chapter 2, verses 22 to 40.

(Gospel)

The Word of God tells us that Joseph, Mary and Jesus always go everywhere together and manifest the tenderness of God the Father in their lives. Joseph and Mary go to the temple to gladly fulfill two laws of the Old Testament: Every firstborn male will be consecrated to the Lord and presented in the temple. Every woman who has given birth must appear in the temple.

In our today it is beautiful to see the husband, wife and children walking together, walking together. It is beautiful to see them together to baptize their children, to turn them into children of God and multiply the tenderness of God in them, tenderness already received in the mother’s womb, at the time of birth, at the time of growth and education.

In family life it happens to us like Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus. We found good, wise, helpful elders.

Joseph, Mary and the child met Simeon, an honest and pious man who hoped to see the Messiah, the Savior, the one awaited by God’s people for centuries. So it was. He saw the light of the nations, he carried it, he let himself be illuminated and with that light of faith he illuminated many who knew him.

Joseph, Mary and the child met Anna, who spoke instead of God and taught.

Now old and widowed, she thanked God for the child and spoke about him to all those who had hope for a better world.

We also know good elders, servant grandparents, who help the family by example and teaching.

Popular wisdom tells us that the devil knows more because he is old than because he is a devil. The old man has a lived wisdom that knows failure and mistakes and has found the path to harmony and peace.

For these wonderful elderly people we thank God. For these marriages of 25 and 50 years we thank God. They have shown us that a natural, faithful and fruitful marriage can be lived. For those grateful children who want to return all the affection received from their parents, accompanying their elders, spoiling them, seeking to make them happy, we thank God.

How precious it is to live as a family united in joys and sorrows! That is the great gift of this year. Thank you, Father God, for this wonder of my family.

The Bible says:

-When God created man, he created him in his image; male and female he created them, and gave them his blessing: “Have many, many children; fill the world and rule it; dominate the fish and the birds, and all the creeping things”. (Genesis I, 27-28).

–That is why a man leaves his father and mother to join his wife. and the two become like one person. (Genesis 2, 24).

–So it’s not two anymore, it’s just one. So man must not separate what God has joined together. (Matthew 19, 6)

–On the third day there was a wedding in Cana, a town in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. (John 2, 1-2).

-Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave his life for her. He did this to sanctify it, purifying it with the bath of water accompanied by the word to present it to himself as a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle or anything similar, but holy and perfect. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5, 22-28).

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

– What is God’s plan for men and women?

God, who is love and created man for love, has called him to love. By creating man and woman, he has called them in Marriage to an intimate communion of life and love between them, “so that they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mt 19:6). When blessing them, God told them: “Grow and multiply” (Gen 1:28).

–Why is the Christian family called the domestic Church?

The Christian family is called the domestic church, because it manifested and carried out the community and family nature of the church as the family of God. Each member, according to his or her own role, exercises the baptismal priesthood, contributing to making the family a community of grace and prayer, a school of human and Christian virtues and the place of the first announcement of the faith to the children.

He says that when Christopher Columbus told his wife, Felipa Moniz, that he wanted to find a shorter route to India, she replied:

-What are you going where?

-To discover what?

-And why do you have to go?

-And why don’t they send someone else?

-You see everything round!!!

-Are you a crazy or an idiot?

-You don’t even know my family and you want to discover the new world?

-Are only men traveling?

-Do you think I’m stupid?

-And why can’t I go if you’re the boss?

-Unhappy, you no longer know what to invent to be away from home!!!

-If you cross that door I’m going with my mother, you scoundrel!

-Who is this Maria?

-What does it paint?

-And the bitch plays the saint!

-And you say she’s a Girl?

-You had everything planned, damn it! You are going to meet some Indian women.

-You’re not going to fool me.

-That Queen Elizabeth is going to sell her jewelry so you can travel?

-Do you think I’m an idiot or what?

-And then what… did he give you the jewelry just because?

-What do you have to do with that old bitch?

-I will not let you go anywhere!

-Nothing is going to happen if the world stays flat!

-So don’t even get dressed because NO GOAAASSS!!!

Ask your Christopher Columbus if you are like that. Listen to it and… talk.

• The peaceful have great dignity, because just as the one who lives with him in his palace is called the son of the king, so the peaceful are called children of God because they live in the palace of God’s peace. (St Thomas).
• Start by having peace within yourself, and then you can give peace to others. (Saint Ambrose)
• The peaceful are called blessed, because first they have peace in their hearts and then they try to instil it in their unruly brothers (Saint Jerome).
• The Lord is not content with eliminating all discussion and enmity between one another, but he asks us for something more, that we try to establish peace among the disunited (Saint John Chrysostom).
• Taking into account that Christ is peace, we will show the authenticity of our name as Christians, yes with our way of living, we reveal the peace that resides in us. (Saint Gregory Nisene).
• The children of God are called peaceful because there is nothing in them that opposes God: children must also resemble their parents. (San Agustin).

Come, Holy Spirit, so that I may know true peace, that fruit that you produce docile hearts.

Come calm my life, calm that restlessness caused by my fears, my insecurities,

my fragility.

Come strengthen me with your grace, you who are the true inner force that pacifies me.

Even though I walk through a dark valley I am at peace because you guide me and everything will end well.

Even though an army encamps against me, I am firm and secure in your presence.

Don’t let me get involved with vain reasoning and fill me with thoughts of peace.

Touch my heart, Holy Spirit, so that I may reach peace with the Father, so that I may accept Him without resistance as my God and Creator.

Come, Holy Spirit, and pacify my relationship with others.

May your fruit of peace spill over into my family and my community.

Take me as an instrument to pacify everything around me, so that I can be the architect of communion and encounter.

Come, Holy Spirit, for my security is not in the things of this weak world.

or in worldly successes, but in your infinite love that sustains me. Amen.