Tag Archives: virtues

February: A Month Dedicated to the Holy Family

07 Sunday Feb 2021

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Holy Family Stained Glass_02

The family is indeed—more than any other human reality— the place where an individual can exist “for himself” through the sincere gift of self. St. John Paul II[1]

The Church dedicates the month of February to the Holy Family. The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is the model of virtue for all Christian households. In these troubling times, when families are no longer valued and are disintegrating, it is of paramount importance that we emulate this virtuous family.

The Holy Family lived out what the Church calls the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Cardinal is the Latin word for “hinge.” All of the other virtues hinge around these four virtues. The higher theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are the fruit of the cardinal virtues.

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The Tumbler Called “Family Life”

11 Sunday Oct 2020

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Family_Polishing the Rough Edges

If you are like many couples, before you said, “I do,” you had an idyllic view of marriage and family life. You and your spouse were in love and there would never be any friction between you. The PREPARE/ENRICH pre-marital inventory calls this “Idealistic Distortion” or looking through “rose-colored” glasses.

A few weeks or months into marriage, your beloved’s quirky traits that you thought were so cute when you were dating, now are rather annoying. Reality begins to set in and your idyllic view of marriage is now challenged by the tensions of daily living with another person. Marriage is a union of two selfish and wounded people. If you thought that you were entering a perfect marriage, as soon as you entered that union, it was no longer perfect. Along with our virtues, we each bring baggage to the marriage. Continue reading →

Back to the School of Love

01 Saturday Aug 2020

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Since 1965, August has been recognized as “Back to School” month. This year, many public and private schools are still trying to determine what that looks like amidst the COVID-19 confusion. But we want to encourage all families to prepare to go back to the “school of love.”

The good news is you don’t have to leave your house or join a Zoom call to attend this school! It is right in your own home. Because the home is where children first hear the gospel proclaimed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the family as the domestic church, “a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity” (1666).

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Confronting Gluttony

12 Sunday Apr 2020

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Blessed are the Persecuted

Praised be Jesus Christ! He is risen! Jesus has conquered sin and death so that we may have abundant life with Him in heaven for all eternity. Thanks be to God for this most wonderful gift!

This Lent we have taken a journey through the Cardinal Virtues, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Beatitudes. Today we will look at the last Deadly Sin of gluttony.

Gluttony consumes an excessive amount of worldly goods, be it food or alcohol. Contrast this with being persecuted which is being deprived of even basic necessities to sustain life. While gluttony is certainly not the greatest of the deadly sins, when combined with avarice and lust, it perpetuates the illusion that our emptiness can be filled with things of the world.[1]

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Confronting Pride

08 Sunday Mar 2020

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Young Nun in her Cell, Cesare Laurenti, 19th Century

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3

This week, we will take a look at the deadly sin or the vice of pride and its antidote, poverty of spirit.

Pride is the greatest sin. It was the first sin in all of creation, causing Satan to rebel against God. Satan fell because he could not accept God’s plan to divinize human beings. Satan could not attack God, so he retaliated against that which God loves most, us.

Pride is the also the first sin of Adam and Eve. Desiring to be like God, they fell for Satan’s deception that God did not have their best interests at heart. This is Satan’s game plan. Time and time again, he tries to convince us that God cannot be trusted with our happiness; and we must follow our own path to achieve happiness.

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The Beatitudes Confront the Seven Deadly Sins

01 Sunday Mar 2020

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Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:1-12

The greatest sermon ever given is undoubtedly Jesus’ Sermon of the Mount. It is a treatise on joy. There is no better place to explore the blessedness of virtue than in this sermon and the Beatitudes. Blessedness, or beatitude, is the greatest aim of the human person, our greatest good. Every person seeks this blessedness but not all find it. Jesus has given us a roadmap to blessedness in the opening to His Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7), the Beatitudes.

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The Greatest Enemy of Love

15 Sunday Sep 2019

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Fitzgibbons Book Cover

The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort, and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish. [1] St. John Paul II

St. John Paul II said that the greatest destroyer of love in marriage is selfishness. It is one of the 12 marriage killers described by Richard Fitzgibbons in his book Habits for a Healthy Marriage: A Handbook for Catholic Couples.[2] Fitzgibbons says that developing virtue is the antidote to these unhealthy habits in marriage.

“Selfishness is the major enemy of married love and of life-long commitment in marriage” (57), says Fitzgibbons. St. John Paul II warned about selfishness in his 1994 Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane…

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Saints Louis and Zélie Martin – Love of Christ Imaged in Marriage

11 Thursday Jul 2019

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July 12th is the Feast Day of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. In October 2015, they became the first couple to be canonized together as husband and wife.

Louis and Zélie are not saints because they raised a saint but rather because they lived and imparted the faith to their family in a concerted and committed way. They evangelized their children by their example as a couple, living their faith in works and instruction in the heart of the family. Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World), stresses that the family is the place where children are evangelized and then the family becomes the evangelizer of other families:

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