J.M.J.
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
I had a dream in the wee hours of the morning yesterday. In my dream, our family had moved to my grandmother’s house. (My grandmother died six years ago, and her house was sold several years later, but I had the feeling in my dream that we had moved there because this was the place I considered home.) In the dream, my wife Liane came to me and told me she wanted a divorce. I was shocked, and I asked her, “But what about our sacred vows?” She looked at me with a look that said they weren’t important to her. “What about our sacred vows?” I repeated. “What about our duty to God and to each other and to our children? Think what this will do to our children,” I told her. “I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “I just know that I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”
I found this dream very strange because this is something I am not at all worried about. My wife and I love each other and are very committed to our marriage and to our family. Now Liane and I don’t always see eye to eye; we have our disagreements, and one or the other of us has been known on occasion to raise our voices. But we are Catholic, and we believe the Catholic teaching on these matters.
“A man and a woman united in marriage form a family together with their children. God instituted the family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution. Marriage and the family are ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of children. Members of the same family establish among themselves personal relationships and primary responsibilities. In Christ the family becomes the domestic church because it is a community of faith, of hope, and of charity.”
--COMPENDIUM: Catechism of the Catholic Church 456
Family is very important to me. I believe the family is essential for civilized society. The Catholic Church teaches that family is necessary for the human person, and the family is the foundation of social life. Further, the lay faithful, in their family life, offer to God the world itself. Family is second only to the Christian vocation which is to follow Jesus and to love Him. The Christian family is the first place of education in prayer, the school of human and Christian virtue, the place where the faith is first proclaimed to children. The Church also teaches that society has the duty to support and strengthen marriage and the family!
So as I said, I found my dream rather odd; that is until I realized that it came on the eve of the celebration of The Holy Family. Now most of the time I think dreams are just dreams. But sometimes the Lord speaks to us in dreams. We see this many times in the scriptures. The magi, for example, were warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod (Matthew 2: 12). And the Lord sent an angel to St. Joseph in a dream on two separate occasions: first, to tell Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife (Matthew 1: 20); and again to warn him to take his family and flee to Egypt (Matthew 2: 13). Sometimes God speaks to us in our dreams, and I think even the biggest skeptic would admit that this is an interesting coincidence that I had this particular dream on the eve of the celebration of The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Does our post-modern, materialistic and relativistic society support the family? The most recent statistic I’ve heard states that fifty percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce. According to the Division of Vital Statistics, one-third of all marriages end within the first ten years. Clearly, there is a crisis of marriage and family in the western world. I am reminded of a talk I heard in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“The family has a heart, and its name is Jesus. It’s love. To give ones life for others, to love… Jesus has not asked for separation from the Church. Jesus has not asked for divorce…
The family has edged into crisis. It no longer sees the light… In the family where there is no prayer, in the family that is not raised in the spirit of Jesus’ Gospel, where there is no Christian love, where there is no profession of faith, there is no experience of faith. My God is alive! I need Him! I love Him! The Christian community, the Christian family, must understand that it has an assignment to show the greatest love, to show what Jesus has shown to the Church. He has given Himself completely to the Church. That is why Our Lady asks for Jesus to be in the center of the family because He has given Himself for the family…
We can observe a right of marriage that lasts to this very day, that was sustained. When the bride and the groom enter into marriage they bring a crucifix with them. The priest blesses the crucifix. And the bride and the groom, both holding each other, hold the cross. They place their right hands on the cross, and they exchange their vows and promises. When the right, the sacrament, is complete, the priest tells them, “Now you may kiss the cross.” With a moved heart, they kiss the cross. And that cross returns back into their family, and they know this is where our marriage was born. This is where our family is born, in the Cross of the Lord.
And there, where the cross is placed in their home, they pray together every day. The husband and the wife first pray. And when the children are born, they may also bring us the children to pray before the cross, and always the cross is kissed. And we are certain knowing who protects us, whose defense and protection we are under. Jesus is over us. And when crisis comes in marriage, difficulty, war, hunger, sickness, there is no divorce here. No, we truly do not know about divorce. Look (at the cross)! Look at (the cross in) my hands! How can a husband say, “I’m leaving my wife?” I must leave Jesus, and if I have left Jesus, what do I have left? No! I must know the teaching at my wedding. My husband, my wife, is my cross. How am I to throw away my cross? How am I to leave my husband? He is my cross. How am I to leave my wife? She is my cross. I must accept and carry my cross. That is the mystery of marriage. That is the sacrament – to be for others. I am consecrated with this cross, to carry you, with love to carry you, that I may always be able to forgive you. And in that family that is holy, that is born from the cross, Jesus. Jesus.”
--Father Jozo Zovko
“Dear children! This is a time of grace for the family, and therefore, I call you to renew prayer. May Jesus be in the heart of your family. In prayer, learn to love everything that is holy. Imitate the lives of the saints so that they may be an incentive and teachers on the way of holiness. May every family become a witness of love in this world without prayer and peace. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
--Our Lady of Medjugorje, October 25, 2004
I had a dream in the wee hours of the morning yesterday. In my dream, our family had moved to my grandmother’s house. (My grandmother died six years ago, and her house was sold several years later, but I had the feeling in my dream that we had moved there because this was the place I considered home.) In the dream, my wife Liane came to me and told me she wanted a divorce. I was shocked, and I asked her, “But what about our sacred vows?” She looked at me with a look that said they weren’t important to her. “What about our sacred vows?” I repeated. “What about our duty to God and to each other and to our children? Think what this will do to our children,” I told her. “I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “I just know that I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”
I found this dream very strange because this is something I am not at all worried about. My wife and I love each other and are very committed to our marriage and to our family. Now Liane and I don’t always see eye to eye; we have our disagreements, and one or the other of us has been known on occasion to raise our voices. But we are Catholic, and we believe the Catholic teaching on these matters.
“A man and a woman united in marriage form a family together with their children. God instituted the family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution. Marriage and the family are ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of children. Members of the same family establish among themselves personal relationships and primary responsibilities. In Christ the family becomes the domestic church because it is a community of faith, of hope, and of charity.”
--COMPENDIUM: Catechism of the Catholic Church 456
Family is very important to me. I believe the family is essential for civilized society. The Catholic Church teaches that family is necessary for the human person, and the family is the foundation of social life. Further, the lay faithful, in their family life, offer to God the world itself. Family is second only to the Christian vocation which is to follow Jesus and to love Him. The Christian family is the first place of education in prayer, the school of human and Christian virtue, the place where the faith is first proclaimed to children. The Church also teaches that society has the duty to support and strengthen marriage and the family!
So as I said, I found my dream rather odd; that is until I realized that it came on the eve of the celebration of The Holy Family. Now most of the time I think dreams are just dreams. But sometimes the Lord speaks to us in dreams. We see this many times in the scriptures. The magi, for example, were warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod (Matthew 2: 12). And the Lord sent an angel to St. Joseph in a dream on two separate occasions: first, to tell Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife (Matthew 1: 20); and again to warn him to take his family and flee to Egypt (Matthew 2: 13). Sometimes God speaks to us in our dreams, and I think even the biggest skeptic would admit that this is an interesting coincidence that I had this particular dream on the eve of the celebration of The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Does our post-modern, materialistic and relativistic society support the family? The most recent statistic I’ve heard states that fifty percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce. According to the Division of Vital Statistics, one-third of all marriages end within the first ten years. Clearly, there is a crisis of marriage and family in the western world. I am reminded of a talk I heard in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“The family has a heart, and its name is Jesus. It’s love. To give ones life for others, to love… Jesus has not asked for separation from the Church. Jesus has not asked for divorce…
The family has edged into crisis. It no longer sees the light… In the family where there is no prayer, in the family that is not raised in the spirit of Jesus’ Gospel, where there is no Christian love, where there is no profession of faith, there is no experience of faith. My God is alive! I need Him! I love Him! The Christian community, the Christian family, must understand that it has an assignment to show the greatest love, to show what Jesus has shown to the Church. He has given Himself completely to the Church. That is why Our Lady asks for Jesus to be in the center of the family because He has given Himself for the family…
We can observe a right of marriage that lasts to this very day, that was sustained. When the bride and the groom enter into marriage they bring a crucifix with them. The priest blesses the crucifix. And the bride and the groom, both holding each other, hold the cross. They place their right hands on the cross, and they exchange their vows and promises. When the right, the sacrament, is complete, the priest tells them, “Now you may kiss the cross.” With a moved heart, they kiss the cross. And that cross returns back into their family, and they know this is where our marriage was born. This is where our family is born, in the Cross of the Lord.
And there, where the cross is placed in their home, they pray together every day. The husband and the wife first pray. And when the children are born, they may also bring us the children to pray before the cross, and always the cross is kissed. And we are certain knowing who protects us, whose defense and protection we are under. Jesus is over us. And when crisis comes in marriage, difficulty, war, hunger, sickness, there is no divorce here. No, we truly do not know about divorce. Look (at the cross)! Look at (the cross in) my hands! How can a husband say, “I’m leaving my wife?” I must leave Jesus, and if I have left Jesus, what do I have left? No! I must know the teaching at my wedding. My husband, my wife, is my cross. How am I to throw away my cross? How am I to leave my husband? He is my cross. How am I to leave my wife? She is my cross. I must accept and carry my cross. That is the mystery of marriage. That is the sacrament – to be for others. I am consecrated with this cross, to carry you, with love to carry you, that I may always be able to forgive you. And in that family that is holy, that is born from the cross, Jesus. Jesus.”
--Father Jozo Zovko
“Dear children! This is a time of grace for the family, and therefore, I call you to renew prayer. May Jesus be in the heart of your family. In prayer, learn to love everything that is holy. Imitate the lives of the saints so that they may be an incentive and teachers on the way of holiness. May every family become a witness of love in this world without prayer and peace. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
--Our Lady of Medjugorje, October 25, 2004
posted by DarrellBowles | 7:41 PM
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