PRAYING THE PILGRIMAGE OF THE HOLY FAMILY
 The members of the Holy Family Intervocational Spirituality Team of Britain and Ireland continue their reflection on the Pilgrimage of the Holy Family and offer you this presentation of the preparatory station – The Cross – for your reflection during Holy Week.
It is significant that the preparatory station of the Pilgrimage is not, as we might expect, an event such as the betrothal of Mary and Joseph but rather it places us at the foot of the cross.
The introductory sentence is very important. The Holy Family that Jesus came to form cannot be just the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The supposition that it is the Church is borne out in the later reflections. Mother Bonnat, when writing about the pilgrimage, makes special mention of the episode dealing with Our Lady and
St. John. As though to emphasise the importance of the larger family, she comments that the subject of the first meditation is the words of Jesus on the cross “‘Mother, here is your son; John, here is your mother;’ these words being the principle of adoption of all Christians called to be the children of Mary and imitators of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” It is in the reflections at this station that we catch a glimpse of what may have been Fr. Noailles’s notion of the relationship of the Church to the Holy Family. When he says that: “The Son of God came on earth to form the Holy Family and that he wanted the first three members [Jesus, Mary and Joseph] of this family to serve as a model for those who would want to become part of it,” it would appear that he is equating the Holy Family with the Church. (Elsewhere in a prayer to
St. Joseph, he refers to the Holy Family as the embryo of the Church.) This understanding of his thought is further strengthened by the fact that he also says that
St. John was the first adopted child to join the Holy Family.
It is significant also that the title under which Our Lady is invoked at this point is “Our Lady of the Holy Family.” (He actually refers to Our Lady as “Mother of the Church” in a prayer to Our Lady of All Graces which he wrote some time later.) Surely, the Holy Family that Fr. Noailles had in mind here, was the “extended” Holy Family – the Church. In fact, this preparatory station sets the tone for the whole pilgrimage by placing us immediately within the larger Holy Family, an idea to which we return at the final station.
This is also the only station where reference is made to the Holy Family seeking God alone in everything. However, since this station sets the context for the whole Pilgrimage, we may safely assume that the idea of seeking God alone is implicit in subsequent references to the Holy Family.
PREPARATORY STATION: click -> THE CROSS
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