“Octave” comes from the Latin word for “eight,” and since eight is one step beyond seven, the number of days in a week, it has long been seen as a symbol of perfection, completion, and new beginnings. Early Christians called Sunday the “eighth day,” since it was the day after the Sabbath and a day of resurrected life, the Lord’s Day. By the seventh century, people regarded the eight days after Easter Sunday as one great day, an octave, one glorious feast when people were forbidden to fast or kneel. In the seventh century, Pentecost acquired an Octave, too. Christmas didn’t claim the honor of a continuous feast, but it did get an Octave Day. January 1 is the oldest Marian feast, the Octave of Christmas. It was originally a feast of the motherhood of Mary, although for centuries until 1969 it was called the Feast of the Circumcision. Our reformed calendar follows the earlier tradition of celebrating Mary as Mother of God.

Today’s Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is a modern one, instituted in 1921. Strains on family life then, with the world emerging from the first “Great War,” were enormous. From its inception, this feast was clearly intended to inspire people with an image of family harmony even amid difficulties.

In 1969 the Feast of the Holy Family was moved to its present position, the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas. When Christmas falls on a Sunday, this feast is bumped to December 30, but is not a holy day. The Gospels chosen in 1969 all depict stressful times in the life of the family of Jesus: the Presentation (with the warning of future sorrow), the flight into Egypt, and Mary and Joseph’s frantic search for their son in Jerusalem. The feast’s former place in the calendar is taken now by the Baptism of the Lord.