Tag Archives: Self-giving love

Families Are an Icon of God

27 Sunday Dec 2020

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Matthias Stom_Holy Family_c1640

Holy Family
Matthias Stom, c. 1640

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family. As the earthly parents of the Christ child, Mary and Joseph provide the perfect parenting models. Their commitment and obedience to God, exemplify the spirit of love for Christ that guided their lives.

Mary and Joseph both answered “Yes” to God’s call. They humbly accepted God’s plan for their lives, trusting that His purpose would be accomplished through their obedience. Their singular purpose in life was to serve God. Husbands and wives today would do well to imitate the honor, love and devotion that Mary and Joseph had for their family, as well as their wholehearted trust and obedience in God.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his Angelus address on the Feast of the Holy Family in 2009 said:

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Family: Imitate Christ in Self-Giving Love

22 Thursday Oct 2020

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JPII Giving of Self

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Memorial Feast of St. John Paul II. For John Paul II, the family plays a vital role in establishing a civilization of love and the renewal of Christian culture. Throughout his pontificate, John Paul II emphasized that a new springtime of evangelization would blossom through the family. Living abundantly through Christ’s grace, the family would change the culture and the world.

Man… cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. (Gaudium et Spes, 24)

These words which were proclaimed by Pope Paul VI in the Vatican II encyclical Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on The Church in The Modern World)[1] became the foundation of the writings of Pope St. John Paul II on marriage and family.

In 1960, while Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla published Love and Responsibility. This foundational work dealt with the issue of how we can transform a sexual urge that is fundamentally selfish into something loving and unselfish.

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Lenten Reflection: The Theological Virtue of Love – Part II

14 Sunday Apr 2019

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Ben XVI_Married Love_02

On this the Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, we continue our reflections on the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. This week we will continue to look at the virtue of love.

Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial.[1] St. John Paul II

It our modern culture, suffering is to be avoided at all costs. The Christian idea that one “should suffer well,” uniting one’s suffering to the suffering of Christ on the cross, is thought to be the antithesis of a life worth living.

Then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in an interview with Peter Seewald, entitled The Question of Suffering, the Response of the Cross,[2] had this is say about love, suffering, and self-sacrifice…

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The Heart of Marriage: Self-Giving Love

11 Saturday Aug 2018

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St Gianna Molla Quote

Gianna Beretta Molla was a pediatric physician, a wife, and a mother. She was born in Magenta, Italy on October 4, 1922. She was the 10th of 13 children in her family. Shortly before her marriage to Pietro in 1955, she sent him a letter that included the above quote. It tenderly speaks of the love that St. Gianna had for her husband and family. Gianna’s life demonstrates a self-sacrificial love, a love that gives for others without counting the cost. It is a love modeled on the love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world to die for our sins. He gave His life as a ransom for ours so we might inherit eternal life with His Father in heaven.

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Marriage: An Image of the Holy Trinity

27 Sunday May 2018

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Trinity_Holy Family

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. The Most Holy Trinity is an eternal exchange of life-giving love. Throughout history, God has shown humanity His selfless love. Christ has revealed the Father’s love in the power of the Holy Spirit. He has shown us the inner life of the Holy Trinity: a communion of persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Church is also a community of persons that shares in God’s Trinitarian life and love.[1]

Marriage is a metaphor for God’s self-giving love. It is also a participation in it. Like all sacraments, Matrimony draws husbands and wives more deeply into the Trinitarian life of God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “the Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 2205).

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