Dr. Charles Mercieca
In Medjugorje the Blessed Mother stated that heaven starts in this life and it continues in the next, She also stated that hell starts in this life and it continues in the next. If that is the case, we need to create a spiritual family, a spiritual community that is capable of enabling everyone live in an earthly paradise, at least in the spiritual sphere. One of our goals and challenges is to redefine the family, to make it highly spiritual as to be the pride of God Himself and the center of His master plan of creation.
Historical View of Family Life
Over the centuries and the millennia of the past, the Divine Master of the universe focused on the importance and greatness of the spiritual family. Unfortunately, our earthly society viewed the human family differently. It did not heed to God's wisdom. As a result, we had to pay for the consequences through crucial suffering revealed in disappointment, frustration, conflict, rebellion, and death. Since the early days of human existence, the family life centered on the creation and solution of problems with little time given to the spiritual element of life. We find in the holy scriptures that the holiest of all people were not immune from this. God's master plan of creation, which centered on the holiness of the family life, has been constantly challenged and defied from the early days of human life. This resulted in one tragedy after another that made suffering become the distinct characteristic of our earthly society .
As a result, many stories have been written on this phenomenon. Most of human suffering and tragedies were attributed to sin, to man's abuse of God's grace. And when such human suffering and tragedies literally went out of control, new interpretations were developed by ascetics to let us realize that, after all, suffering and tragedies are a natural part of life. Such ascetics exhorted everyone to view these negative elements somewhat positively. Like fire, they maintained, pain purifies the soul. Suffering began to be viewed as an essential element for people to get to God, to encounter Him face to face, and to ultimately spending the whole eternity with Him.
Human Concept of God's View of Life
In their spiritual exhortations, preachers everywhere advocated that via coelis est via crucis --the way to heaven is the way of the cross. Whole monasteries and convents were built for men and women to dialogue with God, whose boundless love and mercy go beyond human understanding.
However, in such monasteries, communicating with God on a continuous daily basis did not seem to be enough. Suffering had to be injected in the life of these dedicated souls in form of voluntary mortification and penance. In a number of instances, the sanctify of a person was measured in proportion to that person's suffering with resignation and joy. The suffering Jesus, rather than the glorified Jesus, has been presented as model to every human being. Little has been stated about the fact that Jesus took upon His shoulders the burden of sin that we may be freed from sin, that Jesus suffered on our behalf that we may be freed from suffering, and that Jesus lived a difficult life to uplift by example the spirit of especially the most unfortunate.
The Blessed Mother in Medjugorje stated that many centuries ago God permitted Satan to take hold of the twentieth century. As we near the end of this unfortunate century, we may realize the untold harm that was made particularly in the shattering of countless millions of families, the backbone of God's creation. At the same rime, as the twenty first century is approaching God has not ceased to send us His beloved Mother repeatedly to help us straighten our priorities, our distorted views of life, and our erroneous concepts of joy and happiness. Everything right or wrong starts with the family. This explains the importance of the spiritual family that is emerging in a twenty first century society and the new millennium. The concept of the spiritual family is as old as God Himself, since it originated with God.
Characteristics of the Spiritual Family
The spiritual family realizes that the spirit is more important than the body, that joy develops from the inner part of the human being and not imposed from the outside. The spiritual family is characterized by genuine love, by an unlimited compassion, by boundless energy that keeps the mind open to receive God's inspiration and direction, and by a childlike simplicity guided by wisdom. The spiritual family may be composed of any number of persons. It may be small or large. It may consist of merely a husband, a wife, and a child. It may embrace a small or a large community. Regardless of its nature, the spiritual family has its spirit totally immersed in God's essence through prayer and meditation, through singing and liturgical entertainment as well as through acts that bring the human hearts closely together.
In addition, the spiritual family raises human beings to the angelic level of existence. It focuses its attention thoroughly on God through the assistance of the Blessed Mother as well as the angels and saints. The spiritual family becomes so emerged in God's essence that it bears the imprint of the divinity, in the sense that God's divine virtues radiate through the members of such a fortunate family, he it biological, religious, or community. The spiritual family has been a dream that was sometimes fulfilled here and there. But from the twenty first century on through the third millennium, the spiritual family is bound to become a tangible reality because it coincides with God's dream and plan, because it is in accordance with the mission of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Earth, because it goes along the expectation of the myriad of angels that populate heaven so beautifully, and because it is a direct answer to the prayers of the countless millions of saints that have had our same human experience.
Last but not least, the spiritual family vindicates the announcement that the Blessed Mother made in Medjugorje, namely, that heaven starts in this life and continues in the next. In other words, the spiritual family in the forthcoming twenty first century and the new millennium will prove to be the most effective vehicle that God provided us with to attain eternal life.
Family Life in a Twenty First Century Society as Guided and Protected by the Blessed Virgin Mary
Family life has been designed by God to be the backbone of His creation. Shortly after He created Adam, Ho realized that man was not complete without woman whose presence on earth has made procreation possible. Over the husband and wife God showered His infinite blessings. The fruit of marriage was children. Man and woman became collaborators with God in generating more human beings with God contributing the spirit and with husband and wife contributing the body. The fusion of these two elements brings about the existence of human beings.
Source of Human Suffering
The world has reached a point in history where people are tired of suffering. People suffer because they make inappropriate existentialist choices either individually or as a group. The source of these inappropriate choices could be traced to ignorance, indifference, egoism, or malice. In any event, we find defective priorities. People attach importance to things that are per se insignificant. On the other hand, they tend to attach little importance to things that are indispensable for human survival. Let us examine these four sources of suffering in order to be better prepared for a new family life of a twenty first century society as guided and protected by the Blessed Virgin Mary.
a) Exposition of Ignorance -- One of the great attributes of the Holy Spirit is wisdom which is the antithesis of ignorance. Through wisdom we enable ourselves to see things into true perspective, to distinguish between right and wrong, to choose what is beneficial when faced with alternative choices, and to eventually do what is in the best interest of everyone involved. The first step to eliminate ignorance is to expose it by bringing it up into the open for everyone to see. The second step will be to have such exposed ignorance recognized by everyone that is affected by it directly or indirectly. Once such a recognition is made, wisdom steps in and constructive steps are bound to be taken to eradicate it from our midst.
b) Dealing with Indifference -- In his teachings Jesus demonstrated delight with good people who were viewed as God's pride and consolation. He showed regret and sadness toward wicked people to the extent that He prayed for them with hope and conversion followed as a result. But when he came across the indifferent, Jesus did not hesitate to say that God vomits such people because of their confirmed determination to retain the stains quo. In other words, we can never count on the indifferent to get things changed for the better and to have things done properly and effectively. The best way to deal with the indifferent is through prayer and penance while, at the same time, we proceed to assume their responsibilities and carry them out ourselves since we cannot really count on the indifferent.
c) Effective Control of Egoism -- Human beings, by their very nature, want to secure as many things as they possibly can. They want comfort, security, and anything else you can imagine that is judged to make them feel good and happy. If this were to be done within one's limits and one's needs, there is nothing wrong with such a human urge. But it often happens that, in one's quest to accumulate more and more things, one becomes selfish, an egoist who will find it awfully difficult to share anything good one may enjoy with others. In referring to an egoistic rich man, Jesus said that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was referring to the rich man's uncontrollable egoism. Egoism, as a matter of fact, could be controlled same way Zaccheus controlled his egoism when he promised Jesus to give half of his possessions to the poor. Anything we can do without it, we need simply to give it to those who are in need of it.
d) Fighting and Conquering Malice -- The problem of malice is indeed a very great problem. Malice is found in every realm of society that includes governments, organizations, churches, and schools. Malice may he described as an evil intent. When people knowingly do things wrong in order to secure personal benefits, abuse and exploitation are bound to follow. Government officials reveal malice in their double talk by making people think one thing while such government officials mean another. Organizations plot against each other to gain the upper hand, while exteriorly they shake hands and pat on the shoulders of each other in a friendly manner. Church leaders of various religions try to form cliques to promote causes that are primarily beneficial to them personally rather than to the souls of their adherents. And schools in many countries try to promote a secularistic philosophy that is purely materialistic and void of any spiritual meaning. Our schools have increasingly became characterized by their ability to impart knowledge but not by their ability to utilize such knowledge to solve crucial problems people encounter everywhere.
In her numerous apparitions of this century, the Blessed Virgin Mary went out of her way to make us realize that this twentieth century, which has been under the domain of Satan, will be quite a contrast from the twenty first century, which will be fully under her guidance and protection. The striking difference between these two centuries could be traced to the nature of family life. The twentieth century has degraded family life as evidenced from the millions of children born out of wedlock and the kind of attitudes that were developed between husband and wife...... attitudes that make the couple view each other merely as partners in a business who slay together as long as everything goes fine but break away from each other as things go wrong in some way or another. Children in general ceased to occupy lop priority in the life of parents. The spiritual life of the family has been reduced to the attendance of a mere church service usually taking place on week-ends.
The Blessed Virgin Mary has been a source of encouragement in all of her apparitions. She injected in the veins of the human race enlightenment, wisdom, hope, willingness to walk the extra mile, enthusiasm to move on the right path that leads to God, and the ability to straighten most of the present distorted priorities that led so many to frustration, desolation, and despair. Over the centuries, we read about apparitions of Jesus and Mary appearing to monks and nuns whose life was characterized by continued prayer and holiness. Rarely was it heard that married people were privileged with such visible divine encounters .
The Blessed Virgin Mary has emphasized the importance of holiness not only on individual level but on the family level as well. She appeared to ordinary married women in Southeast Asia, in North and South America and delegated them as her special messengers. She spoke privately with one of the six visionaries of Medjugorje about the difficulties she herself encountered during her lifetime in Israel. This visionary was married and had a child of her own. Over the centuries, there was a feeling that the sanctified souls were found among celibates, among those who dedicated themselves to God and spent the rest of the lives in a monastery or a convent. Marriage, in a number of instances, was viewed as a state where people are more occupied with worldly things than with spiritual things. And in Victorian times, many tended to view marriage as an tolerable "evil" and tended to view married people as less spiritual than monastics, that is, than those who dedicated themselves to live in a monastery or a convent in prayer and meditation for the rest of their lives.
Marriage in God's Perspective
The Blessed Virgin Mary, during the twentieth century in particular, has worked very hard to enable us to view marriage and the family life the way God made it and the way God Himself views it. God views family life, or marriage, as the masterpiece of His creation. Without the marriage between Joachim and Anna, there would have been no child called Mary, who later became the Mother of Jesus. As a result, there would have been no opportunity for Jesus to be born and become one of us. Jesus came amongst us and was raised in a modest, somewhat poor but very holy family. This holy family was characterized by unity, wisdom, understanding, fortitude, courage, and the fear of God, that is, the fear of doing anything displeasing to this lovable and adorable Father of all creation. The Blessed Virgin Mary wants to see the members of the same family united together in prayer, love, tolerance, and dedication.
In accordance with so many dialogues that the Blessed Mother has conducted with so many of her children during the twentieth century alone, it is very obvious that she has been preparing us to enter a new twenty first century and a new third millennium in peace and prosperity. The way to peace and prosperity originates with the family. Children grow to become adults destined to lead the world at the various levels of society. They carry with them the philosophy of life they received from their family while they were growing up. If the philosophy is sound, their leadership in society is equally sound. If the philosophy is distorted and full or errors, their leadership in society will be equally distorted and full of errors.
Briefly summarized, the Blessed Virgin Mary views the twenty first century to be her own century, a Marian century. It is a century characterized by love, prayer, and unity because Satan's time of world possession will be over. It is a century where the priorities of people everywhere will be straightened out giving more importance to anything spiritual over anything material. It is a century that will introduce the subsequent centuries to a new third millennium where Mary's Son Jesus with reign triumphantly to the delight of His lovable Mother. It is a century of hope, peace and prosperity characterized by the absence of war since Satan, the instigator of all human conflicts, will be chained and kept away for a very long time from the Blessed Mother's children. As the Blessed Mother told us on many occasions, through prayer and fasting we can suspend the laws of nature, that is, achieve that seems most unlikely. Mary's mission on Earth will be triumphant and the holiness of the family life will be a vehicle to such a triumph .
Family Communities: God's Delight
Because of the great diversity we have in this world among people, the creation of family communities is not as easy as one can imagine. However, the creation of such communities is highly important, especially when such families share the same religious beliefs. We are speaking here of the Marian communities where people, in spite of their different views and diversities, share in common a genuine love for the Blessed Mother. When such communities put the Blessed Mother as the focus of their attention, as the center of their life, every difference that exists between such families and their individual members disappears .
Family Communities Pleasing to God
The formation of family communities is important because it is pleasing to God who delights seeing his children growing together as united families. After all, God Himself instituted the sacredness of the family. He liked it that way. He could have done things differently, like He did when he created the angels. From the very beginning, God revealed high regard for the human family. In the old testament we see God blessing families providing them with all the material and spiritual things they needed. God could have sent to us the promised Messiah without the intervention of any human being. Instead, He preferred to send His Son the human way, born of a woman and growing up in a family with an earthly mother and father. The New Testament tells us that Jesus grew up subject to his parents, Mary and Joseph.
Living in family communities that are dedicated to the Blessed Mother have enormous advantages and blessings. Children are grown up in an environment which is not exposed to the allurements of Satan revealed in pornography, obscenities, disrespect for one's neighbor, and violence which has infiltrated not only our streets, but our cinemas and television at home. The environment of the family communities could be structured to be a replica of the garden of Eden, where the pollution of air and water would not be a part of it. Of course, here we have a challenge since many Satanic forces in the twentieth have succeeded to ruin and devastate our planet so brutally.
Family communities have the opportunity to institute a life style that will radiate joy, love, and respect in all of its members. Such communities have time to pray and time to relax, time to work and time to rest, time to study and team and time to research and teach. From such communities we may prepare an elite of future adults that will go throughout the nation as missionaries to assume positions of leadership and responsibility. We may also prepare an elite of future adults that will go to spread the messages of our Blessed Mother and to promote devotion to her. Needless to say, such Marian communities may become a source of inspiration for other communities to follow the same footsteps .
God's Blessings and Rewards
What is encouraging with such family communities is the fact that they are blessed by God. And since they are immersed in the spirit of our Blessed Mother, Jesus is there as a brother, a physician, an advisor, a comforter, and a miracle worker. Jesus and Mary are inseparable. They live together side by side for all eternity. In such family communities, there may he organized on a periodical basis, spiritual retreats for good men and women, who do not live in family communities, so that they may learn about them and do something constructive afterwards .
We read in the scriptures: "Judge a tree by the fruit it gives." Family communities will be judged by the fruit they give, that is by the good results that would be observed. Some of these good results ate hound to be: mutual help and respect, desirable behavior among children, more dedication to learning, and notable spiritual upliftment in general. In addition, such family communities are bound to have less distractions, zero crimes, experience more success in life, and visible enjoyment emanates from God's spirit roaming constantly in such fortunate communities. In addition, family communities give God the opportunity to select future messengers of His who would listen to future messages He would be sending to the world through His beloved Son Jesus and His Mother Mary.
In view of what has been stated, we may realize why family communities, in spite of being difficult to form because of so many diversities that exist between humans, in practice we could have them established if those in them share the same goal and purpose in life. Marian communities do share the same objective, namely, making the Blessed Virgin Mary the focus of their spiritual life by staying close to her constantly. In this way, several devotional activities may be devised that will keep them close to the Blessed Mother for the rest on their life.
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