“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.”
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).
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.
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.
