The Holy Family
Why Is February Dedicated to the Holy Family? This year in the Full of Grace Youth Journal, we’re focusing on the Church’s rich devotional calendar. Each month is dedicated to a special devotion—and this month, we celebrate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
But why is February devoted to the Holy Family? The Feast of the Holy Family is celebrated on the Sunday following Christmas, which is long past.
Holy Family Month
The Church dedicates February to the Holy Family because the Feast of the Presentation falls on February 2. At the Presentation, Joseph and Mary obeyed the laws of the Old Covenant and presented Jesus in the Temple as an offering to the Lord. They modeled the role parents should play in entrusting their children to God and obeying the commandments.
Widespread devotion to the Holy Family began in the seventeenth century in France and Canada. In 1893, Pope Leo XIII approved the Feast of the Holy Family for the universal Church and wrote part of the Office of prayers himself. He wrote in Breve Neminem Fugit,
To all fathers of families, Joseph is verily the best model of paternal vigilance and care. In the most holy Virgin Mother of God, mothers may find an excellent example of love, modesty, resignation of spirit, and the perfecting of faith. And in Jesus, who was subject to his parents, the children of the family have a divine pattern of obedience which they can admire, reverence, and imitate.
Devotion to the Holy Family
Since then, nearly every pope has proclaimed the value of modeling the virtues of the Holy Family in our modern age.
How can you incorporate this devotion into your own life? One simple way might be to entrust your day to the members of the Holy Family each morning this month, asking for their particular guidance and intercession.
The Full of Grace Youth Journal – February 2025
The Youth of the Church
If you know a youth who would benefit from receiving monthly editions of Full of Grace, where they’ll dive into the liturgy and other aspects of their faith, sign them up today! Enroll them in The Youth Guild of Saint José Sánchez del Río at YouthGuild.org.
Full of Grace is a monthly journal for those enrolled in The Youth Guild of Saint José Sánchez del Río. Each journal includes a feature on a young saint or blessed, a daily consecration to Our Lady of Fatima, prayer cards and memory verses, Q&A, and art submitted by members of the guild!
Any youth is welcome to enroll. At their enrollment, youths will receive four special benefits:
- On the Feast Day of Saint José Sánchez del Río, February 10, the Shrine will host a special Mass for the youth guild, at the conclusion of which the celebrant will bless guild members with a first-class relic of Saint José Sánchez del Río.
2. The youths enrolled in the Guild are remembered in the Prayers of the Faithful daily during Holy Mass.
3. As members are commended to the special intercession of Saint José Sánchez del Río, each guild member receives a medal of the young saint.
4. Members receive monthly editions of Full of Grace.
