SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS

ICCFM PRAYER BOOKLET
Worldwide Prayer Project of ICCFM

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THE PEACE AND BLESSING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
BE WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
By Mgr. Charles G: Vella (Italy)
International chaplain ICCFM

I am sure you and your children have made some nice New Year's Resolution. Just one and I hope to keep it! Mine has been a renewal of my commitment with the Holy Spirit. The first was made by my parents and god-parents at baptism, then renewed at Confirmation and at the Ordination to the Priesthood (47 years ago). The Christian family in the words of Pope John Paul II is an "Icon of Trinity". As living temples of the Holy Spirit you are called to live under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who is the "principal agent of evangelisation" in all our ministry of families to families. We have to open our hearts and family groups to the Holy Spirit. He sets fire in our heart and in our domestic churches (our families). Jesus told us: " I have come to cast fire into the world". In our daily spiritual life, including that of your sons and daughters, we have to invite the Holy Spirit to make your family "a sign and image of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 0.25). Pray and discern how your home may become " the living temple of the Holy Spirit", where daily through LOVE, GIVING and Suffering you may all grow in the Spirit. Try a dialogue how you can SHARE together this Spiritual growth in the Spirit. When praying assemble together all the family and your groups, invoke the Holy Spirit through your prayers to strengthen, renew and heal your faith and love in Jesus Christ. This can be a resolution, which you can nurture daily throughout the year. May the Holy Spirit guide you and protect you now and always. Every first day of the month I will celebrate a Mass for the intention of ICCFM and all its members. Arrivederci !

Your friend and Chaplain
Monsignor Charles G. Vella

WHAT MAKES A HAPPY MARRIAGE?
A challenge to families
By Mgr. Charles G: Vella (Italy)
International chaplain ICCFM

We hear and read so much about marriage breakdowns, where unhappiness in daily life becomes very hard to bear. Unhappy marriages make news and often couples are driven to despair. The children are nearly always the innocent victims and the trauma of divorce becomes a life-long wound.

The media make money out of unhappy marriages. The emphasis is on what breaks the commitment of marriage: from sex, infidelity, money, conflict and many other evils.

Even in our teaching and pastoral approach we often stress more the negative, than the positive. What makes marriages click?

The pedagogy of Christ in the Gospel was positive and challenging. Though he cast the vendors from the temple and condemned the Pharisees, His whole emphasis was love and the Beatitudes

What is happiness?

The happiness, or joy, that Jesus promises is not the one of the world. Today happiness is often misunderstood and it is not the joy of Christ. He said to His apostles: "I leave you peace, but not the peace of the world."

We count as happiness what helps us to evade the reality of life. Happiness is fun, feasting, money, over-eating, having all the consumer goods, travel, a comfortable home and so forth. Often drink, drugs and sex are taken as a way how to be happy. Happiness becomes something we want to buy, so as to escape sacrifice, suffering and self-denial.

Many couples are frustrated, because though they have it "all", they are unhappy. They suffer from depression, stress and despair. They want to be masters of their life and have the power to end their life on earth. What a pity!

Happiness is a gift of the Spirit. Only as the poet Kahlil Gibran says: "Loving the fatigue of life, we can understand its most profound secrets."

Happiness is achieved through sacrifice. In our "San Raffaele University Hospital", in Milano (1,400 patients), I come across many young and elderly patients whose life is one of suffering. However, they find the strength to accept the joy of the Cross. I am edified and spiritually jealous of their acceptance of God's will with joy. The Cross is our only hope!

This reminds me of the prophet Job, a just man who feared God and knew no evil. He "cursed the day he was born", yet through suffering he received from God the gift of joy. To be happy he had to shout: "I am tired of my life" (Job 1.1:3, 1-26).

He accepted God's will.

Happiness means being in a state of accepting, knowing and facing one's identity. It is an interior state of life, which the couple have to live individually and then in communion together. If one is happy and the other is sad, they will sustain, support and help each other.

St. Augustine said: "You have created us for you, Lord, our heart is restless if it does not rest in You". Joy is resting in the arms of the Lord, loving Him with all our heart and loving our brethren (in case of marriage, one's spouse) as oneself. Only this can make a happy marriage, for if we are united in love to the Lord Jesus our heart will find comfort, serenity and joy.

If a couple does not have a full immersion in this spiritual, and we might add also psychological state, the marriage will not work. We now live in the "Me Generation" where what counts is the full liberty of the individual. We care less and less about the other, even about the unborn and the children. We live in a society which is free from values and we delve in individualism, egoism, power, self-interest, ambition and all that we think makes happy. What a delusion!

Marriage encounter (ME)

I always have found as the best recipe the golden rule of ME:

• What unites us, comes from God
• What divides us, does not come from God.

How true this is for every state of life: married, priesthood or religious?

No millions can buy joy and you cannot buy joy for your kids. Just if the parents are happy, the children will be happy. If not, they will live perhaps in a golden cage of unhappiness.

We have to strive everyday to achieve a state of joy, happiness, serenity and serendipity. Happiness consists in acceptance and appreciation of every moment our life, whether at home, at the workplace or during our pleasure time. We thank the Lord also for small blessing and also when we have to embrace the Cross. "We see joy and suffering in the Face of Christ" (John Paul II). "If we want to see the Face of Christ", the Pope tells us, "we have to contemplate His Face."

We do so through prayer and the Eucharist, and if possible some time spent in front of the Tabernacle to listen to Jesus and to contemplate His Sacred Face.

Challenge for CFM

This is the present challenge for ICCFM and CFM, if we have as the Pope urges us "to cast our nets deeper" (Lc, 5, 4). The Pope invites us to "look beyond" ( Duc in altum). This is what Jesus told Simon Peter and the fisherman.

I pray that all CFM'ers and chaplains will sow the seeds of spiritual joy and happiness in many families where there are tears of suffering, of separation, of divorce and at times of despair.

We are to announce to these families the Gospel of Joy and Life, for Jesus has promised us His unending love.

ICCFM and CFM should be the heralds of "Gaudium et Spes" (Joy and Hope).

This is the key to happiness in marriage!

Your friend and Chaplain
Monsignor Charles G. Vella

CONJUGAL DECALOGUE FOR PROMOTERS, SERVANTS and ANIMATORS OF "MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER", "MARRIAGE REENCOUNTER" & "MARRIAGE RETORNO"
By Fr. Gabriel Calvo (USA)

I.- LOVE EACH OTHER " AS I HAVE LOVED YOU" John15:12
Then, your sons and doughters will learn to be loved and to love

II.- DAILY, LISTEN WITH YOUR HEART TO THE WORD OF GOD Luke 2:51
And afterwards, share it with each other, and together, say Yes to Conjugal Christ

III.- GIVE/RECEIVE FORGIVENESS IN A VERY HONEST WAY Matthew 18:21-22
Daily if it is necessary. A little loving detail will be enough.

IV.- BEFORE RESTING, SHARE GENEROUSLY WITH EACH OTHER Ephesians 4:26
Worries, desires. expectations, living experiences, dreams, pains and joys...

V.- PRAY TOGETHER, DAILY, THE HOLY ROSARY. Jn 19:27
It is the most powerful weapon against seductions of the old serpent, our Enemy.

VI.- LIVE ALWAYS IN GOD'S GRACE John 15: 5-6
Then, the Conyugal Christ will be always alive and active in and through your mutual love.

VII.- HUMBLY APPROACH THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION John 20:22-23
When you need it. Ordinarily, every ,month. Never less. That would be dangerous.

VIII.- SANCTIFY THE DAY OF THE LORD BY RECEIVING HOLY COMMUNION John 15:5
The Body of the Lord is the secret to grow in communion as spouses and as parents.

IX.- RECONCILE WITH EACH ONE OF YOUR SONS AND DAUGTHERS Matthew 5:23-24
Any time they have something against you. Then, they will learn also to ask forgivenes.

X.- PRACTICE HOSPITALITY AND SHARE WITH OTHER FAMILIES YOUR TALENTS AND YOUR NEEDS Romans 12:11-16
Then, you will become an United Family Open to your Commmunity and to the World

To become faithful to the spirit of this "Conjugal Decalogue", let's remember what the Lord revel to us, through Saint Paul in Ephesians 2:19: "You Are God's Family"

ARE YOU REALLY BECOMING GOD'S FAMILY ?