Professional Documents
Culture Documents
promise, made to God under oath, to love one another with selfless charity, enduring patience, and
whole hearted generosity. Even more, it is a solemn vow to accept the children that God wants to
send them and educate their children for eternal life in Heaven with God.
Since the time of Christ, there have been many breaks in Christian unity. There have been many
departures from the Catholic Church. There have arisen numerous churches, calling themselves
Christian. Why the departures? The main single reason has been the unwillingness to accept
Christ's teaching on the indissolubility and fruitfulness of Christian marriage, founded on selfless
charity.
they must constantly receive if they are to live out the sublime directives of the Holy Spirit for
Christian believers.
They have no choice. The world in which they live is
an adulterous world
a contraceptive world
a masturbating world
a homosexual world
a fornicating world
an abortive world, that murders unborn children in their mothers' wombs.
Not to be deceived by this world, whose prince, Christ tells us, is the devil, Catholic husbands and
wives and their families need the light that only Christ can give. He is available with this grace
through the Holy Eucharist.
Not to be seduced by this world, master minded by Satan, Catholics need the courage that only
Christ can give. He tells us not to be afraid. Why not? Because, as He says, Have confidence, I
have overcome the world.
What is He telling Christian spouses and their children? He is assuring them that He is still on earth
in the Blessed Sacrament; that He is still offering Himself daily on our altars in the Sacrifice of the
Mass; that He is literally, physically giving Himself to them in Holy Communion. Why? In order to
enable them to do what is humanly beyond their natural intelligence to comprehend and beyond
their natural will power to perform.
Catholic families have no choice. The psychological pressure from the world, the flesh and the
devil is too strong to cope with by themselves.
The Holy Eucharist must remain, if it already is, or become, if it is not, the mainstay of their family
lives. This is no option. It is a law of spiritual survival for Catholic marriages and families in every
age, and with thunderous emphasis, in our day.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Pope St. Pius X identified the first meaning of the petition of
the Lord's prayer, Give us this day our daily bread. The primary meaning of this petition refers to
the Eucharist. We are asking God in the Our Father to open the minds and hearts of believers to
their need for daily Mass, daily Holy Communion, and some daily praying before the Blessed
Sacrament. Why? To provide us with the daily sustenance that our life of grace requires.
I am speaking to professed Catholics. I am speaking about Catholic marriage and the family. I am
speaking to those whose union in Christ must be preserved by Christ, nourished by Christ, grow in
loving chastity and charity as prescribed by Christ.
Nineteen plus centuries of Catholic Christianity proves that the Holy Eucharist is absolutely
necessary for married Christians to remain faithful to each other, and selfless in their mutual love.
The Holy Eucharist is absolutely necessary for Catholic families to remain united in a world of
selfish instability.
If there is one thing that stands out in Christ's visible life in Palestine it is His power to work
miracles.
In one chapter after another of the Gospels, Christ performed signs and wonders that testified to His
claims to being one with the Father and that, without Him, we can do nothing to reach our eternal
destiny.
Christ changed water into wine at Cana in Galilee.
Christ restored sight to the blind, and speech to the mute.
Christ cured paralytics so they could use their limbs.
Christ calmed the storm at sea by a single word.
Christ even raised Lazarus from the grave. When He told the dead man to Come forth,
what had been a decaying corpse came out of the tomb as a living human being.
But Christ's greatest miracles were not His power over the physical laws of nature. They were His
power to change unbelieving hearts to become men and women of heroic virtue.
The pagans of the first three centuries A.D. were converted to Christ when they saw Christians
practicing chastity and charity. It was especially the faithful and fruitful love of married Christians
and the stability of Christian families, that changed pagans into believing Christians and, in the
process, changed the history of the human race.
Where did the early Christians receive the incredible strength they needed to live in Holy
Matrimony and propagate the faith through their saintly families? Remember, to become a
Christian in those times meant to expect martyrdom. Where did Christians receive the superhuman
power to live such superhuman lives? Where? From the Holy Eucharist.
It is not commonly known but should become known that in the early Church Christians heard
Mass and received Holy Communion every day. The Holy Eucharist was brought to them in prison
as they were awaiting martyrdom by fire or the sword, or by being devoured by wild beasts. We
turn to our own day. What Christ did during His visible stay on earth in first century Asia Minor,
He has continued doing down the ages by the exercise of His almighty power available in His
invisible presence in the Holy Eucharist.
It is the same
Physically same,
Historically same,
Geographically same,
Really same Jesus Christ who worked miracles at the dawn of Christianity, who is now
present in the Blessed Sacrament, offering Himself in the Mass, and received by us in the
Holy Eucharist.
What do we conclude from this? Obviously, that Catholic families be witnesses in our day to
Christ's power in their lives, as were the Christians who were mangled by lions in the Roman
Colosseum, or, like St. Thomas More, were beheaded by order of a lecherous king who discarded
his wife in sixteenth century England.