In
recent years I have been very blessed to witness a number of my
friends enter into the married state through the Holy Sacrament of
Marriage. Some recieved the sacrament according to the modern Roman Rite, while others recieved it in the ancient and beautiful traditional Roman and Byzantine Rites.
Even more wonderful is that I'm already beginning to lose
track of all the little ones that have come into the word as a result
of this. I
am so very happy to know so many young fervent Catholic couples having
children. For me it is really an
extremely wonderful thing to see and it really buoys me up when at times
I am
weighed down by all the evil in the world today. King David spoke truly
and certainly inspired
by the Holy Ghost when he sang:
“Behold, children are a gift of God, the fruit of the womb is a reward.” (Ps 126:3)This for me is a light shining in the darkness of this “culture of death” which fulfills the last prophecy made by our Lord:
“For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck.” (Lk 23:29)
Both
the joy of these my friends and the sorrow of the evil in the world stirs my
heart to fervent prayer for families and for children. My special patron and favorite Saint (after
our Lady) who I turn to especially in my prayers is of course Saint Therese of
the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face.
She has deepened in me a devotion to the Holy Family that was planted as
a seed in my soul by our Lady quite some years ago. This devotion to the Holy Family and the Child
Jesus has purified my prayers in this area down to one single phrase:
“O that they may be an image of the Holy Family!”And this is what I pray for each day either explicitly or implicitly having entrusted these intentions with all things to Jesus through Mary.
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| Taken from: http://holycardheaven.blogspot.com/ |
Just think how wonderful it was in
that first adoration chapel ever in the world in the cave in Bethlehem,
and even more what must it have been
like to remain close to Him just as our Lady and Saint Joseph were in the Holy
House at Nazareth for 30 years?! For us adoration is a privilege we are
only able to partake in maybe a few times a week if we are so blessed (unless we are in
a seminary, monastery, or convent), but for the Holy Family it was simply a constant
state of being in the presence of our Lord. From this we can see how
incredibly holy our Lady and Saint Joseph had to have been in order to live
like this, but still they were human and they are clearly held up as the
perfect model of a holy family.
A very wise and fitting
recommendation for families to live out their vocation of imitation of the Holy
Family I once read struck me most profoundly and has never left me. I came across this advice in the wonderful
book: The World’s First Love – Mary Mother of God, by the late great Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen…
“…(T)o all
young married couples: here is your model, your prototype, you Divine
Imaginal. From these two spouses, who loved as no couple on earth has
ever loved, learn that it takes not two to love, but three: you and you and
Jesus. Do you not speak of “our love” as something distinct from the love
of each one of you? That love, outside of both of you, and which is more
than the addition of your two loves, is the love of God.
“Married couples ought to say the Rosary together each night, for their common prayer is more than the separate prayers of each. When the child comes, they should say it before the crib, as Joseph and Mary prayed there. In this earthly trinity of Child, mother, and foster father, there were not two hearts with but a single thought but one great Heart into which the other two poured themselves out as confluent streams…”
“Married couples ought to say the Rosary together each night, for their common prayer is more than the separate prayers of each. When the child comes, they should say it before the crib, as Joseph and Mary prayed there. In this earthly trinity of Child, mother, and foster father, there were not two hearts with but a single thought but one great Heart into which the other two poured themselves out as confluent streams…”
Now one might think that it wouldn’t
be quite the same thing for a Catholic couple to be praying over their little
baby, however, it is actually much nearer to the reality of the Holy Family
than you might think. You must remember that a baptized child before the
age of reason is necessarily in the state of grace, and any soul in the state
of grace has the most Blessed and Adored Trinity present within him/her.
I remember hearing in a sermon of a story of a
group of Catholics who wished to pray in the presence of God but for the lack
of the Eucharist they found a little baptized baby and placing him before them
all knelt and prayed and worshiped the Blessed Trinity taking it’s repose in
the pure heart of that little child. You see then that if you were to do
as the good Archbishop councils you would be making a wonderful act of faith in
God and recognizing indisputable theological truth that indeed your little
baptized baby is in fact not unlike a little living tabernacle with the presence
of God within him/her.
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| Taken from: http://holycardheaven.blogspot.com/ |
Of course this does not replace
Adoration, but in lieu of that this is the next best thing and for busy married
couples with young children this is a wonderful practice indeed. And as
the children grow they can join you in honoring our Lord Jesus and His Mother
in the Holy Rosary and you will be teaching them this same truth about the
dwelling of the trinity in a soul in the state of grace and their little
brothers and sisters. This will also
give rise to a perfect opportunity to teach them, even from a young age, the
incredible importance of remaining pure and not sinning. This is the example given us by the mother of
Saint Maria Goretti who, because of the good teaching of her mother and her
parish priest, went to her death rather than commit one single serious
sin. Her story is one I will never tire
of mentioning or retelling and it is one that brings tears to my eyes every time of
think of it.
As they say: “the family that
prayers together will stay together”, and if you need any more inducement to
pray the most Holy Rosary just consider how richly the Church has honored this
prayer with indulgences and even more the promises given by our Lady to those
who would faithfully pray the Holy Rosary.
Pope Leo XIII, my favorite Pope who was the Holy Father during the life
of Saint Therese and who she met, went so far as to write a total of eleven encyclicals on the most Holy Rosary alone. Nearly every Pope of the last two centuries has highly recommended the Family Rosary.
Finally, I would just like to leave
you with a sermon from a priest I know that is a compact but rich catechesis on
living the married life:
And I would also like to recommend
for your consideration a sermon on NFP from the same priest that is possibly a
rather different take on the subject from what most Catholics have heard:
I would also very highly recommend this clear and concise Thomistic treatment of the nature of Men, Women, and Marriage...
And here are two wonderful Encyclicals on the Holy Sacrament of Marriage...
Arcanum - On Christian Marriage - Pope Leo XIII
Casti Connubii - On Christian Marriage - Pope Pius XI
And for anyone who is interested in listening to more sermons on the subjects of marriage and family I would recommend the following list:
Feminism: The Demeaning of the Holy Family
And here are two wonderful Encyclicals on the Holy Sacrament of Marriage...
Arcanum - On Christian Marriage - Pope Leo XIII
Casti Connubii - On Christian Marriage - Pope Pius XI
And for anyone who is interested in listening to more sermons on the subjects of marriage and family I would recommend the following list:
Single Sermons
- Blesseds Louis and Zellie Martin: Sanctification in the Married State
- What does MARRIAGE Mean?
- Destroying Marriage and the Family: An Essential Principle in the Culture of Death
- Marriage: Fall from Eden to the Rise in Grace
- Principles of Catholic Education
- Making Your Home a Holy Place
- Women and Children First: Holy Purity
- Holy Matrimony
- Our Lord's Last Prophecy Before His Death: Griswold vs. CT 1965
- Mary, Our Beautiful Model of Motherhood
- The 6th Day of Creation: Man, Woman, and Their Differences
- The Meaning and Significance of the Wedding Ceremony
- The Sacraments: Marriage
Sermon Series
- The Sanctity of Marriage: We Are Left to Battle Paganism On Our Own
- The Sanctity of Marriage: The Duty of Motherhood Versus the Abuses of NFP
- Spiritual Fatherhood: The Solution to the Modern Crisis
- True Feminine Dignity: Spiritual Motherhood to Priests
- The Errors of Russia: How They Affect Family Life
- The Errors of Russia: Their Plan and the Plan of Heaven
- The Errors of Russia: the Plan of Heaven -- Model the Holy Family
- Marriage: Rules on Marriage, part 1
- The Meaning of the Ceremonies of the Traditional Wedding Mass, part 2
- The Marriage Contract, part 3
- Series on Marriage, part 4: Periodic Abstinence and NFP
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| Taken from: http://holycardheaven.blogspot.com/ |
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