Concluding World Meeting of Families 2015, Pope Francis said, “Holiness is always tied to little gestures. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children. They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion. Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love.
That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches.
They are the right place for faith to become life and life to become faith.”
So how can a family grow in holiness in daily life? What me & my family, Holy?
Yes, we were created for Holiness! It isn't easy, but the only thing that makes life worthwhile.
Please take a minute to read/pray 1st Corinthians 13, for it is the model of love - and the model of holiness!
1 Corinthians 13 (translation: The Message)
13
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love,
I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7
If I give everything I own to the poor, even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere.
So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompleteness will be canceled.
11
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.
And the best of the three is love.
Just take one line to focus on this February - the month of love, and your live will become more Holy, I promise you!
Here is a great short article with very practical tips on becoming a Holy Family. http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/eight-ways-to-become-a-holy-family
The really GREAT NEWS is that this is how God loves us! YOU ARE LOVED (perfectly) by the God of the Universe, even though we don't love Him or others back perfectly! Have a Holy February!!!
Nancy Longo
Director of Religious Education
562-822-8779 (cell)
512-759-3712 (office)
