Excerpt from The Catholic Home The Christian family is the unit which goes to {l build up the Catholic Church. To vary\ the metaphor, the Holy Family of Nazareth was the mustard-seed out of which the vast tree of the Universal Church has grown. In Joseph and Mary and the Holy Child we have the prototypes and models of the Father, the Mother, and the children who form the Catholic Family. Indeed, it is the ideal of the Family which pervades the whole constitution and life of the Church. Our Lord in His parables frequently refers to Almighty God as the Father of the family (paterfamilias), or simply as the Father. Think of the touching parable of the Prodigal Son. Christ taught us when we pray to address God as Our Father. St. Paul tells us that after Him all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named (eph. Iii. As Joseph, the foster-father, or legal father, of Christ in the home of Nazareth was, as spiritual writers tell us, the vicar or vice gerent of the Heavenly Father on earth - so that Mary could call him to her Divine Son, Thy father. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.