Close your eyes and envision St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and insert your family into the scene inside the piazza. Do you feel the colonnade — the arms of the basilica — wrapped around you?
Whether biking to confession as a family, praying the rosary with their five children or blessing their food before eating at a restaurant, the Davis family is working toward holiness one day at a time with the guidance of the Catholic Church.
When someone says they see a perfect family, I say look deeper. Families are messy, unpredictable and stressful. That is because human relationships are chaotic and capricious, and a family is the deepest form of being in relationship with others.
“I was nervous telling him, even though I was 36 years old at the time,” Richard said. “He was actually tinkering on the car, and that’s a good time to catch him because he loved doing mechanics. So, I shared with him that I had same-sex attraction.”
Recently I read an article that began “marriage is not for you!” I have to admit that line really grabbed my attention. As I continued, the premise of the article emerged: Marriage isn’t about what the individual receives but rather what a person gives.
When Patricio Peña and Enriqueta Alfaro came to the United States 16 years ago, they didn’t expect to find a new home, a new family and a new vocation in the Church.
Paula Dudgeon is convinced she made the right decision at age 29. After spending nine years with the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary of Waukesha, Wisconsin, she discerned that God wasn’t calling her to spend her life as a religious sister. Instead, she thought he wanted her to get married and have a family.
The first commandment God imparted to us is in the book of Genesis: to be fertile and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28). From the moment of creation, we have understood that marriage is not just a biological function, only to co-create with God the next generation. It is also meant to provide for the spiritual lives of our children, to bring them to holiness.
Christian and Tamara Breczinski, parishioners of St. Ann in Wadena, will celebrate 10 years of marriage in August. They adopted a piece of wisdom early in their relationship that keeps them grounded and helps them persevere through tough times.
Remember the last time you saw a child receive a gift, and the joy and excitement on his or her face when he or she realized that the gift was his or hers to rip open and discover the treasure within? Remember the child’s thank you facilitated by Mom and Dad? It was the gift that taught the child that someone loves him or her, and wants to give him or her joy.
