Transcript:
Dear missionary families of Christ, under the grace-filled celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Missionary Families of Christ, I wish you abundant divine graces under the protection of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
One of the important aspects of the Second Vatican Council was its teaching on the call of the laity to live fully their baptismal consecration. The laity should awaken in themselves the gifts they received in baptism and confirmation, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. The laity should reflect on and study these seven gifts; they have been chosen to be the soldiers and confessors of Christ in the world, wherever they are living. The first task in the family for the father and mother is to be teachers of faith to their children and to form the domestic church. This is such a beautiful mission for them, to transmit the pure Catholic faith to the children with their mother’s milk and to give an example by their way of life.
The same goes for preparing couples for marriage. We have to say to the young people, you have such a beautiful and lofty mission because you will prepare for and establish a domestic church in your family. That is the task of a Christian father and mother, and therefore, you need to awaken in yourselves the gifts of confirmation.
From among the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, young lay people, even those who are not yet married, as well as those who are, need in these times to cultivate in a particular way the gift of courage, fortitude. They need to reawaken this gift in order to profess Christ without fear in our neo-pagan society, which, as we now observe, especially in Europe, will likely bring about a new wave of persecution. Probably, one cannot exclude the possibility that there will be a marginalization of Christians and even a persecution of Christians. We don’t know if it will take a form similar to the age of the catacombs or the communist gulags, but there will be concrete measures of persecution and marginalization of Christians in Western countries.
We have to nourish in ourselves this gift of fortitude as well as the gift of piety. Real piety is a gift of the Holy Spirit. This means that fathers and mothers have to have a deep sense of the supernatural and the reverence for God, for His presence and glory, to seek His glory and to love prayer and glorifying God. This is piety.
I would, therefore, stress fortitude, piety, and the fear of the Lord. The gift of fear must be understood and lived in the sense of loving God’s commandments and fearing to fail in observing His commandments out of love and respect for Him. This disposition of the soul and spirit has to be transmitted to children by their parents.
I would also tell young people, be proud that you are Christians, that you are soldiers of Christ, and do not forget that our goal is heaven. Even when we are still young, we should consider temporal affairs and realities as secondary. We must put on, as St. Paul says, the helmet of salvation and see our entire life as a holy battle to engage in for the sake of reaching eternity. In the midst of the present crisis, we should evangelize all the young people who have been submerged in this sea of secularism for most of their lives and whose minds have been conformed to the present age. We have to show them the beauty of the truth. Beauty is attractive. All beauty is attractive. We have to show them the reasonableness of the truth which Christ has revealed to us and which the Church has unchangingly taught for 2000 years. We find these truths primarily in the catechisms and in the teachings of the fathers and the doctors of the church.
We have to explain this to young people and show them the beauty and the unshakable solidness of the Catholic faith. If we could implement only three elements for a new evangelization, they would be the following. However, we must say it first that the program of a new evangelization is only one program. Christ Himself is the program.
The new evangelization is a way out of the crisis of the church. We must increase and intensify the life of prayer in the church at all levels. This means restoring the centrality of the adoration of God, of Christ. It means restoring the centrality of the Eucharist and the sacrament of confession. To honor Christ in the Eucharist is the first and best means of evangelization. We cannot evangelize if we do not give Christ due honor, especially in the Eucharist. We have to renew with all seriousness and without any compromises the Eucharistic cult. This is indispensable. This is one of the most efficient, important tools of the new evangelization, to spread the beauty and dignity of the worship of God. That means to spread the importance of the first commandment of God and the lofty end for which man was created, namely, to adore God with love and knowledge and to give Him glory. Prayer, adoration, and worship have supernatural power. It is supernaturally attractive.
Then, secondly, we have to proclaim once again the truth of the Gospel, the basic truth of the Catholic faith, in a very clear and, at the same time, very simple manner, not in a manner that is too abstract or academic. We must avoid abstract formulations and terminology that are overflowing today in the church. Young people are not touched spiritually by verbosity and abstract formulations. We must present the traditional catechism to them in a very clear, unambiguous, and simple way. Afterwards, we can guide them to a more profound theological reflection.
Returning to the Second Vatican Council’s universal call to holiness, we have to promote a deep and serious striving for holiness in daily life. These three realities must be inseparably united: the renewal of worship in the liturgy of the Eucharist, second, Catholic doctrine with sound and sure catechesis, and its implementation in daily life.
The lex orandi, the law of prayer, has primacy regarding man’s ultimate end, because we were created to adore God. The lex orandi, however, must faithfully reflect the lex credendi, the law of belief, because faith is the basis and rock of our whole life. Then comes the lex vivendi. We must carry the faith and experience of the liturgy into daily life. In evangelization, we have to stress practical and concrete means of living morally as Christians, as a new creature, avoiding mortal sins. In order to avoid mortal sins, we have to name the sins. We also need to help young people to overcome their addictions to the internet, to pornography, and to all the other spiritual diseases which are so common today.
Hence, these three points, lex orandi, lex credendi, and lex vivendi, are a concrete path to the new evangelization. We have to make the path of the new evangelization less academic and less abstract. One could offer to married couples the following counsel. In order to live a godly married life, one has to strive with the help of God’s grace and his personal efforts to observe the following:
First, put Christ in the center of the mutual love of husband and wife. Marriage cannot be just between two. It has to include a third one, and this is our Lord, Jesus Christ. Second, banish egoism, using more of the word “you” and rarely the word “I.” Third, be considerate of others. One must exercise oneself in stepping back and looking at the whole. Fourth, make little spiritual sacrifices in renouncing one’s will for love of the other and of the children. Fifth, seek mutual forgiveness always and never go to bed without a reconciliation, even in little matters. Sixth, husband and wife should never speak negatively of one another, and categorically, never in the presence of their children. Seventh, spouses have to pray intensely for one another. Eight, common prayer should have a central place in the life of the family. Ninth, practice Christian charity towards needy and poor people and be very hospitable. Tenth, spouses and all members of the family have to learn and practice patience with one another, avoiding insults and offensive or dirty words. Such words should never be spoken in a Catholic family. Eleventh, ask God for the grace to accept the crosses of this earthly life out of love for Him and as a means of intercession and expiation for the eternal salvation of all the members of the family. And the last, twelfth, above all, is the daily exercise of Christian mutual love.
Now, for parents specifically, one could offer the following counsel:
First, see persecution as a grace from God for being purified and strengthened, not simply as something negative. Second, root yourself in the Catholic faith through the study of the Catechism. Third, protect your family’s integrity above all else. Fourth, catechize your children as your first duty. Fifth, pray with your children daily, such as litanies and the Rosary. Sixth, turn your home into a domestic church. Seventh, in the absence of a priest and of Sunday Mass, make a spiritual communion. Eight, withdraw your family from parishes that are spreading error and attend a faithful parish, even if you have to travel far. Ninth, withdraw your children from school if they are encountering moral danger in the so-called sex education, if this is possible. Tenth, if you cannot withdraw your children, then establish a coalition of parents to fight for your rights. Eleventh, fight for parental rights using available democratic tools. Twelfth, build up a widespread crusade of prayers among Catholic families and lay faithful, priests, and bishops under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Holy Angels. These will defeat all attacks of the unbelieving world.
How the Laity Can Help the Church? All the lay people can help the church in this time of confusion within the church. They can help with the following means:
First, through intense, persevering, and confident personal prayers and united in a widespread prayer crusade, imploring the end of the crisis in the church and a divine intervention. Second, through a diligent and zealous study of Catholic truth according to proven Catholic catechisms, especially the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Baltimore Catechism, or other approved catechisms, or those catechisms which are surer and clearer in their content. Third, through a personal witness in professing and spreading those truths which in our days are mostly denied or distorted. Here, the internet provides very helpful technical means. Fourth, through theological, pastoral, and liturgical conferences and symposiums in which the clear and perennial truth of the Catholic Church is stated, explained, and defended. Fifth, through public manifestations such as marches, processions, and pilgrimages, in order to manifest and proclaim the integrity and the beauty of the Catholic faith. Sixth, through acts of reparation and expiation for sins against the Catholic faith and reparation for the sins against the divine commandments, especially reparation for the following sins:
First, against the First Commandment, “Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me,” because of today’s relativism and indifferentism regarding the uniqueness of the Catholic faith and the uniqueness of the faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, the only Savior of all men.
Then, against the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” because of the horrendous machinery of the mass murder of unborn children, even of newly born children, because of the horrendous biomedical research with the tissues and cell lines of the murdered babies today for pharmaceutical and medical research, and also the killing of sick and elderly people through so-called euthanasia. So these are the sins against the Fifth Commandment.
And then the sins against the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” because of the epidemic of divorce, of the social and governmental propaganda on behalf of degrading sexual immorality, such as homosexual activity and pornography, and the moral corruption of innocent children through a cruel sexual education and indoctrination with an anti-natural gender theory.
And then the last, which all the faithful should do through acts of reparation, especially for the most grievous sin and evil of our time, that is, the horrendous sacrileges, desecrations, and trivializations of our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament. The sacrilegious desecrations of the consecrated host, which are today spreading and which are very much helped by the practice of the so-called hand communion. We have to stop this and do acts of reparation.
The beauty of the Catholic faith manifests itself in a special manner in large families. We possess one of the most striking and illuminating affirmations of the Magisterium on this theme in the following words of Pope Pius XII, addressing the Associations of Large Families. I quote, “Large families are the most splendid flowerbeds in the garden of the Church.”
“The brows of the fathers and mothers may be burdened with cares, but there is never a trace of that inner shadow that betrays anxiety of conscience or fear of an irreparable return to loneliness. Their youth never seems to fade away, the youth of the large families, as long as the sweet fragrance of a crib remains in the home, as long as the vaults of the house echo the silvery voices of children and grandchildren. Their heavy labors of the parents, multiplied many times over, their redoubled sacrifices, and their renunciation of costly amusements are generously rewarded even here below by the inexhaustible treasury of affection and tender hopes that dwell in their hearts without ever tiring them or bothering them. And the hopes soon become a reality when the eldest daughter begins to help her mother to take care of the baby, and on the day the oldest son comes home with his face beaming with the first salary he has earned himself. Children in large families learn almost automatically to be careful of what they do and to assume responsibility for it, to have respect for each other and help each other, to be open-hearted and generous. For them, the family is a little proving ground before they move into the world outside, which will be harder on them and more demanding.”
So, the words of Pope Pius XII, the truth, which says that the family is the original place of the beauty of the Catholic faith. We can also see in the following edifying witness in the autobiography of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, from her story of a soul. I quote, “The big feasts did not come along so often, but there was one most dear feast to me, and it came every week, the Sunday, our Lord’s own day, a wonderful day, a day of rest. We all went to high mass, and when it was time for the sermon, I remember we had to leave our place because it was so far away from the pulpit, and go all up the nave to find places near. I was far too interested in what the priest was saying. The first sermon I really understood was one of the Lord’s Passion, and I was very much moved by it. That was when I was five and a half, and from then on, I could take in and appreciate all that was said. I would really listen, but I am afraid I kept my eyes on my father’s more than on the preacher’s face, because I could read a lot in the noble face of my father. Sometimes his eyes would fill with tears he could not keep back. And when he was listening to the eternal truth, he seemed to be already in another world and no longer in this.”
So, the words of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the Catholic family is the original place of the experience of the beauty of the Catholic faith. The Catholic family represents the first bulwark against the corrupt and the current Great Apostasy. The two most efficient weapons against the modern apostasy outside and inside the life of the Church are the purity and the integrity of the faith, and the purity of a chaste life.
The admonition which St. Louis the Ninth, the King of France, left to his son remains always valid. I quote, “My dearest son, my first instruction is that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength. Without this, there is no salvation. Keep yourself, my dear son, from everything that you know displeases God, that is to say, from every mortal sin. You should permit yourselves to be tormented by every kind of martyrdom before you would allow yourself to commit a mortal sin. Work to remove all sin from your land, particularly blasphemies and heresies.”
So, the words of Saint Louis, the King of France, once a member of an anti-Christian movement who later converted to the Catholic Church, said to Father Matteo Crowley, the apostle of the enthronement of the Sacred Heart, the following words. I quote, “We have only one goal in mind,” said this anti-Christian movement, “that is to say, to de-Christianize the family. We leave to the Catholics gladly the churches, the chapels, the cathedrals. For us, it is enough to have the family in order to corrupt society. If we have control over the family, our victory over the Church is guaranteed.”
So, the words of an anti-Christian movement, through true Catholic families and desirably large families, will strengthen the Church of our day with the beauty of the Catholic faith. From that faith will come our new Catholic fathers and mothers, and from them, there will come out a new generation of zealous priests and intrepid bishops who will be ready to give their lives for Christ and for the salvation of souls. Christianity was born out of the family, the Holy Family, so that the family may be born again out of Christianity.
The first fruit of the Redemption is the Holy Family, just as the first blessing of the Creator was given to the family. Indeed, what the current world and the Church mostly need are true Catholic families, the original places of the beauty of the Catholic faith.
Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen.