A few years ago I came across the results of a Europe-wide survey that asked how much confidence respondents had in the various organizations that keep a society alive.
The data showed that a growing number of citizens were increasingly distrustful of states, governments, official bodies, etc. At the same time, ninety percent of those interviewed openly acknowledged that they had regained a sense of trust in the state. and a firm confidence in the future. family.
It is not always easy, much less convenient, to give total credibility to surveys, especially if we take into account the influence of what they call "polls". civilization woke and the legal recognition of same-sex unions, so widespread in today's human agglomerates. There are many imponderables that influence the interviewees and that, on many occasions, condition their answers.
This time, the indications are in favor of the data corresponding to reality: first, because it refers to the family; and second, because the news, picked up only one day in part of the European press, disappeared the next day from almost all the newspapers.
Press organs that normally highlight divorces, family separations, unions outside any morality and any semblance of legality, etc., have been forced to recognize a reality quite contrary to the one they spread with their propaganda. Fortunately, at least they have had the honesty to give the news one day; and that is to their credit.
This survey was at the time still too small a sign for us to speak of a return of affection, in every sense, to the family institution, of a recognition of the words of Jesus Christ pointing out: «What God has joined together, let no man put asunder» (Matthew 19, 6). We cannot deny, however, that it was a sign of a revival of the longing of so many men and women to find a place where they could live with the serenity necessary to carry on with the joys, sorrows, anxieties and calms of each day. And this sign is still very much alive today.
Man and woman, since their creation, have carried in their spirit the memory of a family. We have all arrived on this earth in an already determined and very precise channel; none of us have made the first cradle that welcomed our body; and we have come into the world with an inheritance that will never leave us: the blood and dna of our parents..
Everyone can eliminate from his memory bitter or happy memories of his life; what he will never be able to eliminate is the memory of those who have given him life. And, if on some occasion we try to forget, a gesture, a smile, a cry, a way of walking, a sigh, will be enough to bring the memory of our parents back in front of us, with the kind smile of those who know they are the transmitters of something that surpasses them: the divine gift of living.
It is true that not everything is roses within families. I recognize that it pains me to see brothers divided for questions of money, property, quarrels, etc.; relatives who have not spoken to each other for years because someone said one word too many, or one word too few. These are the cracks in life that we all have to help repair: forgiving, asking for forgiveness, praying.
I have the impression that, in spite of the number of divorces occurring nowadays, that nostalgia for the family is reviving in many young hearts and minds., They are aware that the family is built by a bond before God, and that to carry forward the illness of a wife, a mother, a father, a child, revives in the spirit that desire of Christ about the family: "what God has joined together, let no man put asunder".
Once again we turn our eyes to that institution that God had the good idea of establishing already in the earthly paradise: the family built before the gaze of God, on the love of a man and a woman; and in whose bosom, already from the dawn of his life, the Christian begins to live that marvelous mystery of human solidarity, of the communion of saints.
And the example set by so many fathers and mothers who calmly bear the illness of their wives, husbands, sons and daughters, is a hymn to marital fidelity, to the Will of God which, in addition to moving those of us who know them, is a master key to loving friendship with God and to open the doors to the Sky.
Ernesto Juliá, (ernesto.julia@gmail.com) | Previously published in Religion Confidential.
Table of Contents
Reflection: Words of St. Josemaría Escrivá (you can read and meditate on all or just some of them, as you prefer).
1. Why are we in the world? To love God with all our heart and with all our soul, and to extend this love to all creatures. Or does this not seem enough? God does not leave any soul abandoned to a blind destiny: he has a plan for all, he calls all with a very personal, non-transferable vocation. Marriage is a divine path, it is a vocation (Conv., n. 106).
2. Marriage is not, for a Christian, a simple social institution, much less a remedy for human weaknesses: it is an authentic supernatural vocation. It is a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church, says St. Paul, and, at the same time and inseparably, a contract that a man and a woman make forever, because - whether we like it or not - the marriage instituted by Jesus Christ is indissoluble: a sacred sign that sanctifies, the action of Jesus, who invades the soul of those who marry and invites them to follow him, transforming the whole of married life into a divine walk on earth (ECQ, no. 23).
3. For almost forty years I have been preaching the vocational meaning of marriage. What eyes full of light I have seen more than once, when - believing, they and they, that surrender to God and a noble and clean human love were incompatible in their lives - they heard me say that marriage is a divine way on earth! (Conv., n. 91).
4. It is important that spouses acquire a clear sense of the dignity of their vocation, that they know that they have been called by God to reach divine love also through human love; that they have been chosen, from eternity, to cooperate with the creative power of God in the procreation and then in the education of children; that the Lord asks them to make their home and their entire family life a witness to all the Christian virtues (Conv., n. 93).
5. Christian spouses [...] should understand the supernatural work involved in founding a family, raising children, and radiating Christian influence in society. On this awareness of their own mission depend to a great extent the effectiveness and success of their life: their happiness (Conv., n. 91).
6. Love, which leads to marriage and the family, can also be a divine, vocational, marvelous path, a channel for a complete dedication to our God. Do things with perfection, I have reminded you, put love into the little activities of the day, discover that something divine which is contained in the details... (Conv., no. 121).
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A - May it make us understand the greatness of Christian marriage; may we understand that it is a divine vocation - a personal, loving call from God - and a mission that He entrusts to us in the world: to form a healthy and holy Christian family, "the fundamental cell, the vital cell - as Pope John Paul II said - of the great and universal human family" and of the Church.
B - May he grant us the joy of knowing that our marriage and our family are a divine path, in which - by cultivating an intense spiritual life and helping one another - we can and should follow Christ, the way, the truth and the life, and imitate his love and self-giving.
C - That we never forget that God accompanies, strengthens and protects us with the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony; and, therefore, that we trust that He - with the grace of the Holy Spirit - will fill us with blessings and make us capable of faithfully facing all the responsibilities and problems of family life.
D - May He always remind us of the example of the Holy Family of Nazareth, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, who - full of faith and love, and forgetting themselves - lived fully devoted to loving God the Father, and one another, with a joyful and simple dedication, full of generosity and a spirit of service.
O God, who through the mediation of the Blessed Virgin Mary granted St. Josemaría, a priest, innumerable graces, choosing him as the most faithful instrument for founding Opus Dei, a path of sanctification in professional work and in the fulfillment of the ordinary duties of a Christian: grant that I too may know how to convert all the moments and circumstances of my life into an opportunity to love you, and to serve the Church, the Roman Pontiff and souls with joy and simplicity, illuminating the paths of the earth with the light of faith and love.
Grant me through the intercession of St. Josemaría the favor I ask of you..... (ask). So be it.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.
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