In the Catholic Church, the month of February is dedicated to the Holy Family. This special devotion honors the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as the model of virtue for all Christian households. The family is foundational for Christian life.

Nothing truly can be more salutary or efficacious for Christian families to meditate upon than the example of this Holy Family, which embraces the perfection and completeness of all domestic virtues. Pope Leo XIII

The family is a school of virtue for both parents and children. In family, we find God who is all loving through the love the spouses have for each other and for their children. The family is where love is freely given sacrificially for the good of another. During the International Year of the Family (1994), Saint John Paul II wrote: “The family is indeed more than any other social reality, the place where an individual can exist ‘for himself’ through the sincere gift of self. This is why it remains a social institution that neither can nor should be replaced: it is the ‘sanctuary of life.’”[1]

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