An article that touches our hearts in these troubling times. Divine Providence will always see us through. Let us make sure we are keeping our priorities straight….our daily prayers, the Sacraments, coupled with our daily duties firmly adhered to each day….
by Pope Pius XII, Dear Newlyweds
January 8, 1941 Vol. II, p.367
For you, dear newlyweds, the present hour is like the joyous time of seeding fields made ready with loving care.
Yet, however brightly your youthful innocence may sparkle, you have already learned enough in the school of experience and from a look at the world to know that the future lying before you, which we hope will be brimming with Christian happiness, will bestow upon you not pleasures and joys alone, and that, especially in these troubled times, it will not bring to pass without suffering your sublime mission of giving life to innocent children, gifts of heaven, of raising and instructing them in holy religion by word and example, destined as they are to be your own support and the bulwark of your country and to join you one day in eternal glory and happiness.
The farmer does not hesitate to face courageously the unpredictable eventualities of drought and frost, for he is aware that God’s merciful providence will be concerned for him and will not let fall those who serve and hope in Him, as he will not let starve the sparrows which swoop about the plow.
You too know that the Lord will not permit you to be tempted beyond your power (I Cor. 10:13) and that patience has “its perfect work” (James 1:2). Do not doubt therefore that in His infinite goodness He will suit the trials to your strength, or better still, to the strength and comfort which He Himself will give you through His grace; and this faith in Him which is the source of hope in your hearts today will still be the support of your work tomorrow.
But this should not make you forget that even in the darkest moments the future might hold for you, you will not be without consolations and satisfactions.
In the country, as you know, even winter does not pass without its joys. Is it not then that the family, dispersed during other seasons because of its work, regathers more frequently around the hearth? Is not this the time of long paternal and fraternal sessions during which hearts beat more in union with each other than ever, and, in conversations and silences more eloquent than words, souls probe each other more deeply and know each other more intimately in their affection and thoughts?
Is it not then that the past, the present and the future enliven the memories and conversations of happy families?
So too for you, dear sons and daughters, in the most difficult moments that might ever befall you, the haven of comfort and consolation will be just as great. Do not fear.
If, as strong and trusting Christians, you will accept afflictions too as coming from the Hands of God to perfect our virtue, these trials, instead of inciting reproach, complaints, discord and dissension, as unhappily occurs so often, will draw your hearts even closer together and will strengthen your love in sorrow, for love does not live without grief.
Then you will know each other, you will speak to each other and you will understand each other better, you will support each other more steadily in the steps of life’s journey. Then the love which joins you, tempered in the fires of tribulation, will definitely grow stronger; nothing will any longer avail to separate two souls which have so valorously suffered and carried together the cross in union with Christ.
These thoughts, which come from the heart as our paternal remembrance for you, may perhaps seem austere in these days of your happiness.
Yet in the light of the faith which has drawn you to us, they are the only source of true happiness, of that happiness which can only arise, exist or endure where the high purpose of this life is profoundly understood, accepted, loved; of a happiness less childish, less thoughtless, less frivolous, but more intimate, more solid and more secure since it is founded on the fullness of the Christian spirit which does not collapse before the winds of adversity and which makes joys and sorrows of this world the means of attaining a better life.
This is the spirit we ask of God for you, dear newlyweds, and for all those who are dear to you, while as a pledge of abundant graces and heaven’s gifts we impart, with all our heart, our paternal Apostolic Benediction.
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“Modern mothers have been relying on psychology books to interpret child behavior for so long now that if all the psychology books were burned to a crisp, few mothers could relax with the conviction that God’s love, the maternal instinct, and divine grace could take their place. What we all — little or big — want is God; if we do not realize it, however, we choose many ignoble things in His place. And if we want to teach children to be good with a goodness that’s lasting, we must teach them to be good for the love of God.”
Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children, 1954
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