Faith and Family / Sean Gallagher

Family life embodies the liturgies of Holy Week

The family has long been described as the domestic Church in the Catholic tradition.

It’s easy to understand why this is so. Just as the family is the basic building block of society as a whole, so it is with the Church. It is in the family where new believers are welcomed into the broader family of faith that is the Church.

Parents plant the seeds of faith in their children in baptism and nurture them as they grow so that as adults, with the help of God’s grace, they’ll live out God’s will and spread the Gospel.

So, it would appear that the family as the domestic Church primarily involves evangelization and catechesis.

Such a view, however, sells short this rich reality of faith.

Every aspect of the life of the Church is part of the life of the family. One that bears reflection as we approach Holy Week is the connection between the family and the Church’s worship.

The liturgies of Holy Week, filled with solemnity and rich symbols, are the peak of that worship.

Catholic parents and their children can see in the profound moments of worship in Holy Week how the saving paschal mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection are at the heart of their common life together.

The acclamation of Christ as the Son of David at the start of the Palm Sunday Mass is manifested in the life of the family when parents and children put the Lord first in their lives by serving the needs of others in the family before their own priorities. At the same time, the betrayal of Christ and calls for his crucifixion are seen in the home when they give in to selfishness and pride.

Both of these happen many times in one day in the life of a family.

When parents wake up in the middle of the night to care for a crying baby or a sick child, they are humbly washing their feet like Christ humbly bathed the feet of his Apostles, which the Church recalls during the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday.

For their part, children do this too when they dutifully carry out daily chores assigned to them, especially when they would rather go off and play, which is probably most of the time.

No parent or child is perfect. All of them have shortcomings that make life difficult for each other. Accepting and loving each other in the face of these hardships can be heavy crosses for all members of families.

God’s grace that poured from the pierced side of Christ on the cross empowers parents and children to die to themselves in loving each other in the face of so many hurts and frustrations.

On Good Friday, parents and children can offer up this often sorrow-filled love to our Lord when they come forward to venerate the cross.

While there can be many moments in family life where we are joined to Christ in his suffering and death, God’s grace also fills the hearts of parents and children with the joy of our Lord’s resurrection.

The joy the Church celebrates at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday flows forth in profound moments for families like baptisms, first Communions, graduations and marriages, but also in daily hearty laughs and joyful smiles shared during a family meal.

What the Church celebrates in Holy Week is embodied in the daily life of families. God can transfigure that common life when families open their hearts to the grace flowing to them through the Church’s liturgy. †