The Church will celebrate on Sunday, December 28, 2025, the Feast of the Holy Family under the motto «Marriage, Vocation to Holiness», the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) thus launched an explicit call to rediscover Christian marriage as a path of self-giving, mission, and fidelity, in a cultural context marked by the fragility of family bonds.
Marriage as a Concrete Call from God
In their message, the bishops emphasize that every Christian vocation is a unique plan drawn by God, which is not discovered in an abstract way, but in the concrete reality of life. In the case of marriage, they explain, the call does not precede the encounter with the beloved person, but arises precisely from that encounter.
It is in love for a specific person that man and woman discover that God calls them to a stable and fruitful communion, to a total and definitive self-giving. Thus, every authentic love story can become a place of call and mission, where spouses are called to be a visible sign of God’s faithful and creative love.
The Family, the First Sphere of Vocation and Evangelization
The message recalls that the matrimonial vocation is not separate from the human experience of love, but elevates and fulfills it with the grace of the sacrament. The bishops insist that marriage is a true Christian vocation, the seed of society and the foundation of a living Church.
In this sense, they evoke the Church’s constant teaching on the family as the domestic Church, the first space where faith is lived and transmitted, and where love becomes visible in everyday life.
Holiness Lived in Married Life
Far from presenting holiness as something alien to family life, the bishops recall that the Church today proposes concrete examples of holy marriages, such as the parents of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus or the Ulma family, united even in martyrdom.
Marriage—they affirm—is not an unattainable ideal, but a real path to holiness, lived amid difficulties, sacrifices, and trials, sustained by sacramental grace and everyday fidelity.
A Call in a Context of Cultural Crisis
The message places this Feast in a social context where marriage is weakened by individualism, lack of commitment, and economic difficulties. Precisely for this reason, the bishops emphasize the need for holy marriages, capable of giving firm and visible witness to Christian love in the midst of the world.
Final Invitation to Families
In the Christmas season, the bishops invite all families to look to the Holy Family of Nazareth as a model and consolation, especially those living situations of difficulty, adversity, or suffering.
The Feast of the Holy Family is thus presented as a privileged occasion to renew the matrimonial vocation, strengthen family life, and rediscover marriage as a path to holiness and mission in the Church and in society.