What is Holy Family consecration?
When we don’t really know someone, but we’ve heard a lot about him or her, our imaginations can take over. We paint a certain picture of who this person is. We’re often wrong. For many people, this experience is analogous to our experience of the Holy Family. We’ve heard a lot about Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but we don’t really know their family life. We paint a picture of unattainable perfection in our heads and we can dismiss the Holy Family as being out of touch with our trials and tribulations. This is exactly why the Holy Family consecration matters.
What is a consecration?
The word “consecration” comes from the Latin con—“with, together” and sacrare—”to make or declare sacred.” Therefore, to consecrate something means you are making it sacred, you are setting it with sacred things. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines consecration as follows: “Consecration, in general, is an act by which a thing is separated from a common and profane to a sacred use, or by which a person or thing is dedicated to the service and worship of God by prayers, rites, and ceremonies.”
We can think of the holy vessels used only for the celebration of the Eucharist at Mass, for example. These golden vessels have been set apart for one purpose—for one, and only one meal.
The concept is quite scriptural. We see consecration throughout the Old Testament, from Abel (and his offering of first fruits) and Noah (and his family) to Moses (and the people of Israel) and David (as king of the people). In the New Testament, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus, the Twelve, and so forth. If you’ve ever been to the ordination of a priest, you witnessed a consecration. This man is now set apart. Actually, this gets at the point. The “being set apart” is not for the sake of the person or thing set apart—like the preservation of a museum piece. The “being set apart” is for the sake of the whole, for the sake of serving the whole. The newly ordained priest isn’t just a priest for himself, but for the people of God.
If you were to engage in Holy Family consecration, you will have a great opportunity to teach your children about consecration and to have a conversation about what it means to be a Catholic Christian person/family in the world.
In fact, at the encouragement of our pastor, my family consecrated ourselves to the Holy Family a few weeks ago. The conversation leading up to saying the prayer together was rich (though not without a fair share of distractions) and we’re now making the prayer a regular part of our Sunday evening routine.
Who is the Holy Family?
Most readers know the Holy Family consists of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. On the one hand it seems pointless to ask this question. On the other hand, we could do a deep dive into each of the members and write separate books on each.
For our purposes, it will suffice to say that the Holy Family is the icon of a holy and wholly ordinary life. Joseph and Mary were set apart in their unique relationship with Jesus, the Son of God, yet they were set right in the midst of their family and friends in Nazareth. They were not so removed as to be untouchable. Rather, they were both right there with God, and right there with others. They lived the richness of their Jewish religious life and the richness of ordinary life in society. Mary and Joseph were wholly devoted to their Son and to raising him in the Jewish faith and they were wholly devoted to teaching him the necessary skills for dealing with the ordinary affairs of life in Nazareth during the first century AD.
What is Holy Family consecration?
To consecrate yourself, or your family to the Holy Family is to set yourself apart with the Holy Family. As we set ourselves apart with the Holy Family, we draw near to the Holy Family and get to know its members. In other words, consecration is an opportunity to be disillusioned. All those images of the Holy Family so shrouded in mystery come into better and better focus. That sense of distance from the Holy Family and its situation starts to be overcome.
And, like the Holy Family was set apart for the sake of service to humanity—literally raising the redeemer of the world—when we consecrate ourselves and our family to the Holy Family, we are uniting ourselves, in a sense, to their service to the world.
Holy Family consecration is an act that places us with the Holy Family for the service of the many who are all around us and our families.
All of this reminds me of a few lines from a Christian letter that was circulated around 130 AD. In the “Letter to Diognetus,” we read a description of the Christian in the world, and it is a fitting description for the family striving to become a holy family:
To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world.
The family consecrated to the Holy Family is set apart yet present in all aspects of ordinary societal life in the 21st century. In other words, we still participate in youth sports, school PTO, and going to the grocery store, but how we do these things should differ from the rest of “the world.” Youth sports now becomes about more than winning—it is a field of opportunity for learning virtue. School PTO is not a political jockeying, but a seeking of the common good for students, teachers, and families. And, the grocery store is more than checking things off a list, but an opportunity to encounter neighbors and, maybe, to serve someone in need. To be a family set apart, yet present to the needs of others, this is what consecration to the Holy Family means.
The Holy Family Consecration Prayer
Recently, the Knights of Columbus began promoting Holy Family consecration. Supreme Chaplain, Archbishop Lori of Baltimore, composed a beautiful prayer that can be accessed on the resource page of the Knights’ website.
The prayer is simple. It contains beautiful imagery. And, it could easily be prayed daily—as part of a family’s nightly prayers—or weekly, on Sundays, for example.
As a family prays this consecration prayer, they are asking that their family be set apart with the Holy Family for the sake of the many other families we encounter on a daily basis.
Through Holy Family consecration, we can:
Grow in our relationship with the Holy Family
Experience the conversion and transformation of our families—becoming more like the Holy Family
Find our footing as a family—as an example to others and in service to others
The Holy Family need not remain so distant. Through a simple prayer incorporated into the fabric of your family’s prayer life, you can draw near to the Holy Family and join in its mission as you grow your own holy family.