The Association of the Holy Family is a group of Christian families, approved by the Holy See, which through the consecration to the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, intends to be a community of disciples, witnesses and apostles of Nazareth.
THE FIRST ASSOCIATIONS
by C.L. Stoeber, SF
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One of the earliest initiatives to establish devotion to the Holy Family through the active participation of a group of people, is that of the layperson Jerome Le Royer de la Dauversiere (1597-1659) in Canada: he consecrates himself, his wife and his children to the Holy Family on the feast of the Purification in 1630. In order to look after the infirm and elderly, he decides to establish a “community,” and so organizes the first Guild of the Holy Family, under the advocacy of Saint Joseph, which is promptly approved by his bishop in 1634, and canonically established the following year.
Jerome Le Royer de la Dauversiere
Some thirty years later, the Jesuit priest Peter Chaumonot is concerned about strengthening the family and home life throughout the surrounding area of Montreal. Together with the Governor’s widow, the parish priest, and Mother Margaret Bougoyne, he founds a Holy Family association in 1662, which has as its purpose “the sanctification of Christian families through imitation of the Family of the Word made Flesh.” The spirit of the association urges all members “to form part of the Holy Family, each imitating the Person he/she represents in their own families: fathers imitating Joseph, mothers imitating Mary and children imitating the Child Jesus.”
So as to insure the existence of the association in the future, Bishop Francis de Montmorency-Laval canonically approves it in 1664. On 28 January 1665, a Bull of Pope Alexander VII, and on 14 March of the same year, a Summary of Indulgences, extend to the association’s full membership the necessary guarantees and privileges.
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In Florence, Italy, Pope Urban VIII, on 7 February 1640, recognizing the tremendous work of the Jesuits throughout the whole surrounding area, approves an association bearing the name of “Fellowship of Jesus, Mary and Joseph”.
During the following century, another Jesuit Priest L. Offermans is asked to take care of drafting the new statues of the Universal Association of Christian Doctrine under the heading of Association of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for the Promotion of Christian Doctrine. At about this same time there appears another confraternity bearing the name of “Association of Jesus, Mary and Joseph under the Tutelage of saint Francis Xavier,” which has as its purpose the nurturing and preservation of Christian doctrine as set forth by Popes Pius V, Paul V and Gregory XIII.
