Sylvester and the Holy Family

Happy seventh day of Christmas! Were today not Sunday, the Church would be celebrating the optional memorial of Saint Sylvester I, pope and confessor.

He was ordained a priest just before the persecutions of Diocletian got underway, and he survived those years of terror and saw the triumph of Constantine in the year 312. Two years later he became Pope.

Christianity was finally legal, and it was during Saint Sylvester’s Pontificate that the great Roman basilicas were built.

Among other achievements, he convoked the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, established the Roman school of chant and music, and is responsible for the first Roman Martyrology. He died on 31 December 335 and is buried in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome.

But today is the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, so Sylvester gets short shrift. Today, we instead celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

In the Holy Family, God gives us a pattern of family life: child, mother, father. Well, in this case, foster father.

And more than that, we are given a pattern of a holy family life, centered on God. This family was beset by the problems of the world – from being refugees in Egypt from the wrath of Herod right up until the moment Mary’s heart broke at the sight of her son’s brutal torture and execution.

And through it all, they discerned and followed the will of God, and they turned to each other. They become not just the model, but the very definition of a holy family.