Family
December 15, 2024
Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~
Family is super important; without it the human race would go extinct. It is the source of most people’s greatest consolation. Yet family members can be very difficult to get along with, let alone live with. Throw in the divine person of Jesus Christ and His life changing expectations, and some family members become downright hostile. Why is that? Almost everyone loves Christmas, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, yet so many don’t care at all for who or what Jesus actually is and stands for. We do. In fact, the divine person of Jesus and what He stands for is so important to some of us that we would accept celibacy, and no earthly family at all, to commune with Him, and share Him and His life saving truth with others. Some of us Christians would go so far as to risk alienating some or even all of our beloved family members (the saints did) to place Jesus Christ first in our lives. That dynamic can be on full display from Thanksgiving through Christmas, the two times of the year when family gather most. How are we supposed to deal with family division over our Catholic faith?
Stay faithful to Jesus Christ and His bride, the Catholic Church. In the next life everyone (except for those in hell) will prioritize God above all others for all eternity. Our family for all eternity will be those we share heaven with, irrespective of our blood ties on earth (which of course includes everyone because we trace our family lines back to Adam and Eve). We are all brothers and sisters in blood, and brothers and sisters in the Lord for those of us who share communion with Him. So, when we are with family members, still pray, still attend Mass, still be faithful to Our Lord’s commandments, and if Jesus Christ is number one, still act like it around family members because He is. If others squirm, or give you the cold shoulder and say nasty things, know that your fidelity to Jesus Christ and His Church is their best chance of sharing heaven with you. So don’t water down your Catholic faith. Don’t prioritize your family over that of Christ and His Church. Doing so might keep them around in this life, but risks losing them forever in the next.
My family of origin means a lot to me and some of them are still a source of great consolation to me. Yet it is the Church that has become my natural, day in and day out, family—both the Church on earth and the Communion of Saints in purgatory and heaven. Why? Because you share my relationship with Jesus Christ: the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We share a life of faith together that ultimately is a greater consolation for me, the saints, and many of you, than our families of origin (with rare exceptions).
On the next page, is a great message about family by someone with alleged mystical experiences, called Little Mary. I make no claims to the authenticity of the mystical encounters she claims to have, yet the message shared below is a fantastic take on family from a divine perspective. I hope you’ll read it and draw from it faith, wisdom, strength, and consolation in your own walk with the Lord and your family members.
May Almighty God Bless You,
Fr. Thomas Nathe
https://www.countdowntothekingdom.com/little-mary-the-struggle-for-truth/
“The struggle for truth” (Luke 12:49-53)
Jesus to Little Mary (in Rome) on October 24, 2024:
My little Mary, behold, the Gospel says: “I have not come to bring peace on earth, since my peace is not like that which the world gives,” that is, the peace of well-being, of a quiet life that revels in its possessions and is not subject to disturbances and annoyances. My peace is a peace of conscience, in the honesty of one’s inner being, that lives by the truth: truth which, if it is expressed and lived out, becomes uncomfortable and is not welcomed, which is fought against, and which will require struggles and divisions to defend it.
The dark forces will always try to hinder the heralds of truth through lies, and this will involve personal sacrifice, the challenge to self, the giving of oneself, the loss of convenience, comforts and compromises for the victory of good—a battle that will also and above all take place within the family, your relatives and acquaintances, as the Gospel states, so that in a home, two family members will be against the other three, three other people will be against two others. The dearest of affections, the closest blood ties, will come to oppose one another and be divided—something that will happen with greater difficulty regarding bonds of the spirit, with brothers and sisters united in the same principle of faith and shared truth. These unions become superior to those of blood and surpass them, since they become eternal.
Living out unity, in terms of belief and divine teaching, involves a choice, taking a stance that cannot ally itself with those who live in lies and evil, that cannot live in false adhesion to those who deny the truth of God, becoming mixed with those who are against the Holy Word. There can be no complying with their erroneous behavior or sharing in their unhealthy ideas in order to please them. It will be necessary to fight, with this being a battle of love, to enlighten and to bring these brothers and sisters in error to the right path, to the way of redemption that leads them to the Lord.
In the world there will, therefore, always be a split, a part that fights against the other, that will not be able to live in total unity and in a dimension of complete peace; there will rather be a division that will lead to its full revelation in the universal judgment, when it will be made manifest before all, when the split due to the choice made by men and its consequences will be evident. Humanity will be divided forever.
Now, however, you are called to live together in such a way that one person tries to lead the other to good and to be sanctified, to work for the salvation of the soul of others who may be lost, while the opponents will try to deform and pollute the bearers of the truth.
My children, each person must plough their own furrow of soil for the truth. I give you all the means with which to work. I do not abandon you, giving you my support and help to ensure that, furrow after furrow, the path to the Kingdom is marked out.
The truth will be victorious, even if this will involve losses, defeats, sacrifice. The blood cost in the martyrdom offered will bring that peace which will be fixed, stable and eternal, with all the children of God: the children of truth.
I bless you.
