“The final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family.” These prophetic words were shared in a letter from Sister Lúcia to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna. Sister Maria Lúcia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart was a Portuguese Catholic nun and one of the three children to witness the 1917 Marian apparitions in Fátima.

In her letter to the Cardinal, she also said, “Don’t be afraid…because anyone who works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. However, Our Lady has already crushed its head.”

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This week we continue our series on models of marriage lived virtuously. Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi were beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 21, 2001. This fulfilled a lifelong desire of the future St. John Paul II when, for the first time in the history of the Church, he beatified a husband and wife together. The beatification was part of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of John Paul II’s seminal apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World).

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St. Joachim and St. Anne are the parents of Mary, the Blessed Mother of Jesus. Each year the Church venerates them on July 26th. Tradition holds that they struggled with infertility for decades. Infertility quite often resulted in couples being shunned and scorned by their family, friends and neighbors.

After years of longing for a child, undeterred in his faith, St. Joachim went into the wilderness to fast and pray for a child. Saint Anne remained home, donning garments of mourning, weeping to God because she was childless. A servant girl reminded St. Anne to put her trust in God. St. Anne washed away her tears, donned her bridal clothes and went into her garden to pray to God for a child.

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Today is the Feast Day of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Just this past October, they became the first couple to be canonized together as husband and wife. As the exemplars of holy family life, we have designated Louis and Zélie Martin as the patron Saints of the Calling Couples to Christ Apostolate.

Pray for us, Saints Louis and Zélie, that we may be an instrument of hope and healing to families as they strive to live well their vocation to marriage and family life.

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We live in a crazy, mixed up world. What is up is down. What is down is up. There is no area of greater confusion in our society than in the area of marriage and family. If we do not understand marriage, we will never understand God. A lifelong, committed, chaste, faithful and fruitful union of one man and one woman is thought to be old-fashioned. Relationships are just another means of recreation, for immediate self-gratification and nothing more. People are just objects to be used for one’s own personal gratification. If a relationship is not meeting your needs, just throw it away and move on to another.

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We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage. (Teddy Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States)

The American Revolution was in part, a battle for religious freedom. Courageous men and women stood up for that which was right and just, a belief held so deeply that they were willing to risk their lives to fight for this freedom. This young nation honored God and by His providence, was protected from evil forces seeking to destroy it. God bless these holy men and women for fighting for what they believed.

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