What Mary and Joseph Teach Families

by Kilian SC · April 4, 2016

BY KELVIN BANDA OP – As human beings, we need families which bring us up in a good and moral manner. But families also experience many challenges in trying to maintain the bond that must exist at the core of family life.

The Holy Family is depicted in St Joseph’s church in Nazareth. In his article, Kelvin Banda OP suggests that the Blessed Virgin and St Joseph are a good example for families today.

The life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Joseph can serve as a model for many families.

Firstly, Mary is the standard of Christian virtue and discipleship through her total submission to the will of God, as well as through her meditative personality, her evangelisation, her intercession on behalf of others, her solidarity with those who suffer, and finally her prayerful patience in anticipating for the coming of the Lord.

Christian and non-Christian families need to reflect on the role of Mother Mary within the context of family.

Mary is the uniting figure in the Holy Family; she brought unity between God, herself and Joseph through accepting and obeying the will of God, thereby bringing salvation to all.

Our mothers need to be exemplarily like her. They need a strong foundation of faith; a faith that is founded on contemplation; on the word of God. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:17).

Women need to listen to the voice of God and so become intercessory prayerful figures within families.

Just like love, the faith of a woman is stronger than that of a man. This is because, mostly, when a woman realises her faith in God, she clings to it just like she would cling to her loved one.

Women have a great passion for families. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, who interceded for the needs of a newly-married couple at Cana, women have much strength to present the needs of the family before God because of their love, discipleship and charity for the family.

Women indeed show true compassion for the family at times of trouble, pain or suffering. They have authentic compassion which seeks to love those who experience different calamities around them.

Secondly, like St Joseph, men are also called to listen, to wait upon God.

They can do this by being “men of prayer”. Men need to lead families in a deeply prayerful way of living.

Pope Francis articulated this soon after his election. In a homily on March 19, 2013, he said a man needs to be a “protector by being constantly attentive to God, open to the signs of God’s presence and receptive to God’s plans and not simply to his own”.

The pope further noted that caring and protecting demand goodness and a certain tenderness.

“In the gospels, St Joseph appears as a strong and courageous man, a working man; yet, in his heart, we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak, but, rather, a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love,” Pope Francis said.

Men must not be afraid of goodness, of love, of tenderness to their families. Tenderness and love do not show weakness but are signs of communal strength, supportive and protective of the family.

Tenderness and love are some of the character traits that a loving, fortified man can use to build up and unite his family.

Men need to learn from Joseph how to love women in a godly manner and bring up children in the grace of God: encouraging children to go to church; get them involved in the work of the parish, and join different sodalities.

Lastly, by emulating the Blessed Virgin Mary and her spouse, St Joseph, women and men can lead their families to God through their everyday moral life rooted in prayer, contemplation and the grace of God.