Parents trying to build holy families today are walking through a minefield. One false step and the family blows up. Surveys show that the best way to pass on faith is that both parents practice the faith. If a father alone practices, almost 85 percent of children will follow, but a mother alone only 35 percent. If we want our next generation to grow in holiness we need the fidelity, mercy, kindness and compassion of Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph. We need to pray together to both Our blessed Mother and St. Joseph.
Our Blessed Mother blesses us with eternal love. Saint Joseph demonstrates how to provide, protect and promote faith and divine love. When Joseph discovered Mary was carrying the Son of God, he planned to divorce Mary quietly and not expose her to shame or cruelty. Joseph was a man of faith, obedient to whatever God asked of him without knowing the outcome. When the angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him the truth about the child Mary was carrying, Joseph immediately and without question or concern for gossip, took Mary as his wife. When the angel came again to tell him that the family was in danger, he immediately left everything he owned, all his family and friends, and fled to a strange country with his young wife and the baby. He waited in Egypt without question until the angel told him it was safe to go back.
St. Joseph’s trust in God’s plan and his faithfulness and loyalty to Our Blessed Mother teaches us how to be confident and courageous in building a culture of life. When St. Mary Magdalen men’s cenacle come together to share the revelations of Elizabeth Kindelmann from Jesus and Our Blessed Mother we learn how men and woman differ from passing on the gift of faith. While women are more relational and share their feelings, men tend to fix and provide solutions. Men want to provide and protect their own families but hesitate to promote their personal relationship with Jesus.
Most men come to The Flame of Love through the invitation of their wife. God’s Powerful Flame of Love helps men to develop their feminine virtues while women develop their masculine virtues. Living a life of virtue, they can balance when to be confident and courageous and when to be compassionate and merciful.
Together they demonstrate the patience and perseverance Saint Joseph needed to love God, and Our Blessed Mother and to teach Jesus and us how to be fully human.
Monsignor Ralph J. Chieffo
