The Holy Family:
Model for Every Family on Earth
“We see that at the beginning of the New Testament,
as at the beginning of the Old, there is a married couple. Whereas Adam and Eve were the source of evil which
was unleashed on the world, Joseph and Mary are the summit from which holiness
spreads all over the earth. The Savior
began the work of salvation by this virginal and holy union, wherein is
manifested His all-powerful will to purify and sanctify the family—that
sanctuary of love and cradle of life.”
(Pope John Paul II, encyclical Redemptor Custos)
What a beautiful description of the family—a sanctuary of love and cradle of life. That beautiful sanctuary designed by a loving
Creator was desecrated when the First Family in the order of nature, Adam and
Eve, surrendered to the seduction and snares of the Fallen Angel and, in pride,
wanting to be god, disobeyed God. Thus, they were driven out of that paradise of
perfect harmony and intimacy with God into a world of darkness and separation
from God, a world of discord with the earth and with one another. They lost for themselves, and us, the reward
of obedient love, entrance into the Everlasting Paradise of the beatific vision
and full communion with the unending glory of the Holy Triune God, the glory
God intended for them and their posterity from the very beginning of time.
In the fullness
of time, however, God kept His promise to send a Savior, the Sacred Humanity, who through His humility and obedience would reverse
the deprivations of Adam and Eve’s sin
of pride and disobedience, and would engage us in a new covenant that would
open the doors of the Father’s house to us and would adopt us into God’s own
family, through grace. All human history
is measured by this sacred event,
the Word-Made-Flesh in Jesus, the
Sacred Humanity Who brings us salvation from all sin.
As Jesus is the
center of time and of the human family into which He was born, so must He be
the center of every life called to be the extension of His humanity in our
world. Christ’s physical birth happened
but once, but its purpose is to be reborn every day in every heart until we are
so immersed in that Sacred Humanity it is no longer we who live but Christ who
lives in us. Thus, when we enter into
the Father’s house, He will look upon us and see only His Son and will call us
by His Son’s own Name, dearly Beloved of God. And we will respond, “Abba,
Father!”
The
feast of the Holy Family was established in 1893 by Pope Leo XIII to show the necessity
and the importance of the unique and
complete cooperation of this Family in the work of redemption, and to remind us
that all life and all salvation comes by way of the family. The traditional family is under great attack
in our contemporary society. We have an
epidemic of alienation and rootlessness among our youth; violence, drug and
alcohol abuse; an increasing suicide rate, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell
harvesting and abortions, all of which deny the sacredness of life itself. We
are constantly bombarded with the reality and consequences of rampant pre-marital,
extra-marital and homosexual relationships that are contrary to the Church’s
teachings on sacramental marriage between one man and one woman with its permanent
commitment and covenantal love modeled on the unconditional and enduring love of
God Himself for us.
It
is no surprise that the Lord saw fit, already in the early 1940’s, to speak to Sister
Mildred Marie Neuzil, visionary of the Our
Lady of America devotion, of the great need in our time to focus on the renewal of the Christian family. She stated: “it was made known to me
interiorly that my mission was to
converge towards the sanctification of the family.” (Diary, pg. 4) It was
later made known to her that this was to be accomplished specifically through
the imitation of the virtues of the Holy Family, that perfect model on earth of
the Most Holy Trinity’s own interior “family life” of knowing and loving and
giving, one person to another.
One cannot love
what one does not know, and one cannot know truly what one does not love. God’s love is First Love, Agape Love, that totally
unconditional and self-emptying Love that always takes the initiative and endlessly
gives itself away. He does so through
His works of creation and re-creation, redemption and sanctification. A popular
Tommy Riddle song expressed it so well in secular terms: “Love aint love until you give it away.” Love needs a giver, a receiver, and the gift of
love itself. That Trinitarian exchange
of love is redeeming and is best seen in the life of the family.
On
November 8, 1954, Our Lady of America
spoke interiorly to Sister in the following beautiful but challenging exhortation
and promise:
It is
the wish of my Son that fathers and mothers strive to imitate me and my chaste
spouse in our holy life at
As in our little
home no sin was to be found, so it is the wish of the Heart of my Son and my
Immaculate Heart that sin should, as far as possible, be unheard of in the
homes of our children.
The Divine
Trinity will dwell in your midst only if you are faithful in practicing the
virtues of our life at
In
his encyclical on the family, Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II confirmed so well what Our
Lady says in her message.
…the family,
reflection of the Trinitarian communion, has as its model the family of
In
one of the personal letters of Sister Mildred Marie Neuzil to Fr. Paul Leibold
(later Archbishop Leibold), who would be her spiritual director for 32 years, she
wrote about the family’s role in saving the
nation and the world, and in bringing peace to our world.
As the family is
formed by individuals, the result of each member striving to live in the Divine
Presence, in this way the family itself will be sanctified. The Father sent His Son to be a member of a
family as an example to all families.
The life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph was not an easy one. There were no miracles to make their living
more bearable. They were no different
than the families around them except in the depth of their love for the Divine
Presence within them. It is holy
families that will save the Nation, save the world and bring about the peace so
long desired. It is indeed late but
there is still time to save our world.
Believe that God loves you, believe with all your heart and see what He
will do for you and what you will be able to do for Him and those about
you. This is a divine partnership and
nothing save our lack of faith can ever break it. Believe in Him Who
lives in you and nothing will be impossible of attainment. What you cannot do, He will do, only believe.
“It is holy families that will save the Nation,
save the world and bring about the peace so long desired.” What a challenge for our families! Not
weapons, but holy families will save the world!
And holiness can only be achieved through union with the Sacred Humanity
and the Divine Indwelling Triune God.
If Jesus saw fit to speak the following strong warnings
in locution with Sister Mildred already in the early 1940’s, He must have
deemed them necessary to address the increasing breakdown of the spiritual
dimension and role of the family in society and within the Church.
“Woe to parents who set a bad example to their
children! Terrible will be their
judgment. I will demand a strict account
of every soul entrusted to their care.
Woe to parents who teach their children how to gain materially in this
world and neglect to prepare them for the next!
“Woe to children who disobey and show disrespect
towards their parents! “ Honor thy father and thy mother.” On this shall they be
judged most severely.”
Jesus then utters blessings on
those who strive to make their families like unto His Holy Family, a place
where Jesus is at home with us. An old
custom was to leave an empty place at every table as a reminder that Jesus is the
unseen guest at every meal, even as He is, or should be, the true head of every
home. And as the head of the house, it
is He Who imparts the Father’s blessings, so rich a tradition in the Faith of
our ancestors, on the members of the household.
Blessed are the homes that honor My Name and the
Name of My Father. Blessed are the
homes where I am loved, for there the Holy Trinity dwells. Blessed are the parents and children who have
made a home for God in their hearts.
On the eve of
February 11, 1958, Our Lady of America spoke to Sister Mildred Marie with these
powerful words on the only true path to holiness for ourselves
as individuals and for our families.
Beloved
daughter, you wonder at the sword and the deep wound it has made in my
Heart. It is the sword of grief plunged
therein by my children who refuse to let me teach them the true way. There is only one true way to the Father, my
child, only one way to eternal union. It
is the way of the divine humanity. It is
through my Son, the Only-begotten of the Father, that souls attain perfect
union with the Divinity, as perfect as human nature is capable of, aided by
divine grace.
But my children
will not heed; they will not listen. Every other way they will take, but not this one. (Diary, pg. 23)
How much longer will we refuse to listen to our
Mother? Who is the master of our homes,
and our lives? Is there a place of
headship reserved for the Lord, for He is
knocking, always knocking! Have
we welcomed Him in?
As for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord!
©Sisters of
the Indwelling Trinity,