Tag Archives: marriage

Marriage: Image of God’s Covenant with His People

04 Saturday Aug 2018

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St John Vianney on Family

Sacred Scripture is God’s love letter to His people. Throughout this letter, God uses nuptial imagery to describe His covenantal relationship with us, His beloved children. Just as His love for us is everlasting, so God designed marriage to be an unbreakable relationship between one man and one woman for life. Our culture views marriage as a contract between two (or more!) people that can be broken at any time when the relationship no longer meets the needs of those involved. Hence, we have a twisted view of a God who loves us unconditionally in spite of our sin. Broken marriages lead to a broken image of God.

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Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – Family Consecration

08 Friday Jun 2018

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Sacred Heart_02A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690), was a French Visitation nun and mystic, who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart. As a young girl, she had apparitions of Jesus Christ, which she thought were a normal part of human experience. After receiving her first Holy Communion at age nine, she suffered four years with rheumatic fever, which confined her to bed. After making a vow to the Blessed Virgin to consecrate herself to religious life, she was instantly restored to perfect health.

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Solemnity of Corpus Christi – Marriage as an Image of the Eucharist

03 Sunday Jun 2018

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Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist – His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Marriage is an image of the Holy Eucharist.

The Church since its earliest days has held up marriage as a profound image of God’s love for His people, brought to fruition in Christ’s love for His bride, the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, describes how God’s covenant with His people Israel images the union of man and woman in marriage:

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Priscilla and Aquila: A Christ-Centered Marriage

26 Monday Mar 2018

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Priscilla and Aquila were a married Christian couple who worked closely with Paul (Rom 16:2; Acts 18:3; 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Tim 4:29). The just released movie Paul, Apostle of Christ highlights their work in helping persecuted Christians in Roman.

This is an insightful interview with the actors that portrayed Priscilla and Aquila. They share what they learned about marriage.

https://www.facebook.com/PaulMovie/videos/154055661955553/

Married Love: A Foretaste of Heaven

22 Thursday Feb 2018

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Have you ever thought of your marriage as a foretaste of heaven? When marriage is lived as God intended – with permanence, partnership, fidelity, and fruitfulness – your marriage is the image of the love that unites the three persons in the Holy Trinity.

Pope Benedict XVI offered high praise for the family in one of his audiences. Here is what he had to say about the gift of marriage and family:

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Marriage: Radiating the Love of Christ to the World

11 Sunday Feb 2018

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Aquila Quote

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Blessed Pope Paul VI’s visionary letter Humanae Vitae, Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver has issued a pastoral letter The Splendor of Love. Archbishop Aquila states that Blessed Paul VI “prophetically defended the integrity of married love and warned us against the danger of reducing sexuality to a source of pleasure alone” (SL, 1).

Archbishop Aquila states that his purpose in writing the pastoral letter is “to affirm the great beauty of the Church’s consistent teaching through the centuries on married love, a love that is so desperately needed today” (SL, 5). He goes on to say:

The family is the foundation of society, and when it is undermined, society itself is threatened with collapse. Therefore, it is crucial to reaffirm our commitment to the truth, goodness, and beauty of Christ’s teaching on marriage and sexuality. SL, 6

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Praise God for the Gift of Marriage

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

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Today we are celebrating 15 years of marriage. In honor of this blessed day, we would like to share with you the story of how God worked mightily in our lives – even in the midst of hardships, trials, and grief – to bring us together.

It was late in the summer of 2000. Dennis sat there in heavy traffic hoping that he would not be late. He was on the way to the hospital to meet with a group of doctors who were caring for his wife. What was supposed to be a four-day hospital stay had turned into four months. Dennis suspected that this special meeting with the doctors could only mean that his wife’s condition was becoming grave.

During that sad four months, God had reassured him with scripture after scripture that He was going to heal his wife of her illness. They prayed for a miracle, they prayed for healing. Dennis found comfort in God Word’s and he believed that God would grant his wife the miracle of healing.

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Our Lady of Fátima: Intercede for Families

13 Friday Oct 2017

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Today marks the 100th anniversary of last of six apparitions of Our Blessed Mother to three shepherd children – Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta – at Fátima, Portugal. She first appeared to the children on May 13, 1917. In her subsequent appearances, the Virgin Mary requested conversion, prayer (particularly the recitation of the Rosary), and sacrifices on behalf of sinners. She also revealed a three-part secret regarding the fate of the world.

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The Children of Fátima: Lúcia dos Santos, Francisco Marto, Jacinta Marto

As word of the apparitions spread, Mary promised a sign from heaven. On October 13, 1917, the “Miracle of the Sun” occurred.  The crowd of some 70,000 witnesses reported that the sun began to spin, twirling in the sky, and at one point appeared to veer toward earth before jumping back to its place in the sky.

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Reconciling a Relationship

25 Friday Aug 2017

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The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt, c. 1667 or 1668

We have a love for Sacred Scripture. It has so much to say about human interactions and is particularly helpful for issues we face every day in marriage and family life. That is why it is so important to immerse yourself in daily Scripture reading. The Father does know best when it comes to issues pertaining to maintaining and developing our relationships with others.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:15-20

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Responding to Love with Love

18 Friday Aug 2017

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Christ Carrying the Cross, Tiziano Vecelli, c. 1565

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” Matthew 16:24-28

In this Gospel passage, Jesus tells us how to be one of His followers. Specifically, to be His disciple requires the denying of self. In this age of the unholy trinity – me, myself and I – these words of Jesus are hard to understand and follow. We live in a culture that honors and admires rugged individualism and personal satisfaction. Sacrifice and suffering are to be avoided at all costs. Yet Jesus is telling us that this is the way to eternal joy and happiness.

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