Family

Statue of the Holy Family

In the work of Maria Valtorta and in the Catholic faith in general, three notions of "Family" are common:

1. The "Family of God" which encompasses the Church in its universal sense and in which all men are called. We have only one Father: God, Father of all, above all, through all, and in all. This Family forms the "Kingdom of God".
2. The Holy Family (Joseph, Mary and Jesus) which establishes the model of Families and inspires them, notably through the Hidden life of Nazareth.
3. The social Family constituted by a man and a Woman, united in marriage, and their children. This unit, constitutive of society, imposes itself on public authority. It is the normal reference, according to which various forms of kinship must be appreciated.

In all these meanings of the term, Jesus recommends, in the work of Maria Valtorta, to be inspired by the example of the Virgin Mary.-

The "Family of God" and the human Family

Jesus establishes at the beginning of his public life the notion of Family among his Disciples ( and ). He extends it to the entire world ( and ), then to the communion of saints.

In this context, he introduces the usage of calling each other "brothers or sisters," as the Virgin Mary is called "Mother."

This is echoed, in its own way, by the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium: In the one Family of God, "when mutual charity and the unanimous praise of the Most Holy Trinity make us share with one another, all of us, children of God who form in Christ only one Family, we respond to the profound vocation of the Church."

This gathering is the Church, which on earth "is the seed and beginning of the Kingdom of God."

"Church" should be understood in its universal sense – not institutional – as precisely defined in this dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium.

The Holy Family

Nazareth is a lesson in family life, said Paul VI in his speech of January 5, 1964.

The Hidden life of Jesus "teaches us what Family is, its communion of love, its austere and simple poverty, its sacred and inviolable character; let us learn from Nazareth how the formation received there is sweet and irreplaceable; let us learn what its primary role is on the social level."

Here, at this school, one understands the necessity of having a spiritual discipline if one wants to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become Disciples of Christ. Oh! How we would like to become children again and entrust ourselves to this humble and sublime school of Nazareth! How we would like, near Mary, to begin again to acquire the true science of life and the higher wisdom of divine truths."

This lesson is found in the work of Maria Valtorta, but Jesus actualizes it in our time: this model is especially for Christian Families of this particular and painful moment.

The social Family

The Family is the basis of social life where man's future is forged (2007). In Maria Valtorta, Jesus details its foundation in opposition to the modern Family. The observation is harsh:

Where are today's Families in which young children are taught to love work to please their parents? Children now are despots in the house. They grow hard, indifferent, rude towards their parents. They consider them as their servants, their slaves. They do not love them and are little loved in return. By making your sons violent and angry, you separate from them with a shameful absenteeism.

They are everybody's children. But to you, they do not belong, O parents of the 20th century. They are much more the children of the nursemaid, the teacher; they belong to school, …

This fundamental core, its mode of development, is the seed of harmony or discord:

To not always be bad brothers, and one day adulterous spouses, one must learn from the earliest Age respect towards the Family, an organism that is the smallest and the greatest in the world. The smallest compared to the organism of a city, a region, a nation, a continent. But the greatest because it is the oldest; because it was established by God when the idea of Homeland, of country did not yet exist, but the family nucleus was already alive and active, a source for the race and for races, a small kingdom where the man is king, the Woman queen and the sons subjects. Can a kingdom last if there is division and enmity among its inhabitants? It cannot last. And truly a Family does not maintain itself without obedience, respect, economy, good will, love of work, affection. (Introduction to the commentary on "Honor your father and your mother").

The Church distinguishes the Christian Family which constitutes the "domestic Church" (CEC § 2204), but it is not limited to this aspect. The Family, the original cell of social life (CEC § 2207) must be aided and defended by appropriate social measures (CEC § 2209). It is a political obligation (CEC § 2211): The political community has the duty to honor the Family, assist it, especially ensuring:

• the freedom to found a home, to have children and raise them according to one's own moral and religious convictions;
• the Protection of the stability of the marital bond and family institution;
• the freedom to profess one's faith, to transmit it, to raise children in it, with the necessary means and institutions;
• the right to private property, freedom to undertake, to obtain work, housing, the right to emigrate;
• depending on the institutions of countries, the right to medical care, assistance for the elderly, family allowances;
• the Protection of safety and health, notably regarding dangers such as drugs, pornography, alcoholism, etc.
• the freedom to form associations with other Families and thus be represented to civil authorities.

In "The Gospel as Revealed to Me"

The "Family of God" and the human Family

• I want you to love one another without preferences, helping each other, being good Face to one another […] You are like the children of a holy Family. There are many different characters in it […] If you were all alike, one would impose himself by force, and all the others would be diminished. So, on the contrary, you form a perfect union because you complement each other…
• Here are brothers. I want that to be the name you give each other and consider yourselves as such. You are like one Family. When is a Family prosperous and the world admires it? When union and harmony are found there. If one son becomes the enemy of another, if one brother harms another, can the prosperity of this Family ever last? No. It is in vain that the head of the Family tries to work, smooth difficulties, and impose himself on the world. His efforts yield no results, for resources crumble, difficulties increase, the world mocks this state of perpetual conflicts that fragment affections and goods - which, united, were powerful Against the world – into a heap of small, petty contrary interests, from which the Enemies of the Family profit to hasten its ruin more and more.
• Faced with the choice: Jesus or the Family, it is You I have chosen. Here I am, if you want me.
• The world is comparable to a great Family whose members exercise different and all necessary professions […] The professions are all necessary, all holy, if all do their work with honesty and justice. How can one achieve this, if Satan tempts us from so many sides? By thinking of God who sees everything, even the most Hidden Actions, and of his Law which says: "Love your Neighbor as yourself, do not do to him what you would not want done to you. Do not steal, in any way."
• (To some peasants) You will therefore be united with other good and pious peasants and you will form one Family where you can talk about God and his Word without using subterfuges to do so. Support each other in faith. Help each other. Be indulgent toward the faults of others. Be for one another a cause of edification. That is love.
• We will be one Family even with the living. Souls are not separated by death. I speak of the righteous. They form one great Family.

The Holy Family

• The Holy Family in Egypt.
• (Catechesis) What you see constitutes the lesson for you as for all. It is a lesson of humility, resignation, perfect understanding, offered as example to all Christian Families and particularly to Families Christian of this particular and painful moment.
• (The death of Joseph) Those who think that Mary did not suffer for the pains of her Heart are mistaken. My Mother suffered.

She suffered saintly, because in Her all was holy, but deeply […] Now she felt alone, like a vine branch cut from the vinestock to which her life was linked […] Earlier it was unity where each member of the Family relied on the others. Now the main wall was missing, the first blow to this Family, foretelling the very near separation from the good beloved Jesus.

• (Catechesis) As a conclusion to the hidden life of Jesus.
• It is not right that the Family where a saint lives be free from the inevitable misfortunes of life.

The social Family

• Where are today's Families in which young children are taught to love work to please their parents? Children now are despots in the house. They grow hard, indifferent, rude towards their parents. They consider them as their servants, their slaves. They do not love them and are little loved in return. By making your sons violent and angry, you separate from them with a shameful absenteeism.
  They are everyone’s children. But to you they do not belong, O parents of the 20th century. They are much more the children of the nursemaid, the teacher, they belong to school, …
• To not always be bad brothers, and one day adulterous spouses, one must learn from the earliest Age respect toward the Family, an organism that is the smallest and greatest in the world. The smallest compared to the organism of a city, a region, a nation, a continent. But the greatest because it is the oldest; because established by God when the idea of Homeland, of country did not yet exist, but the family cell was already alive and active, source for the race and races, a small kingdom where the man is king, the Woman queen and the sons subjects. Can a kingdom last if there is division and enmity among those who inhabit it? It cannot last. And in truth a Family does not maintain itself without obedience, respect, economy, goodwill, love of work, affection. (Introduction to the commentary on "Honor your father and your mother" ).
• General or particular misfortunes, such as wars or ruins in one or two Families, where do they come from? From Saltfishness which is lack of love. And with the ruins of Families also come material ruins by a chastisement of God, because God sooner or later always strikes whoever lives without love.
• What are the world wars and Family wars, and those of professions, if not injustices in action?

In other works of Maria Valtorta

Notebooks 1943

• Catechesis of June 16: I have taught you to prefer purity and continence over lust, sobriety over debauchery, faithfulness over deception, work over idleness, honesty over fraud, respect for authorities over rebellion, love of Family over dissipation, mercy over harshness, humility over Pride, justice over abuse, truthfulness over lies, respect for innocence over Scandal, faith over disbelief, sacrifice over jYesssance. But all these things, I, your God, did before you.
• Catechesis of June 30: I do not destroy your affective wealth. I take it from the earth to transplant it to Heaven. There will be rebuilt for eternity the holy ties of Family, pure friendships, all those forms of honest and blessed affection that I, Son of God made man, wanted for myself and know to be very dear. But if they are dear, very dear, they are not dearer than God and eternal life.
• Catechesis of July 17: I have not destroyed the ties of Family. I sanctified them. I said to love kin with supernatural love. And is there a greater love than having charity towards the Souls ill of our blood? Would one who took care of the interests of everyone except his own seem normal to you? No: you would say he is mad. It is equally unjust that someone provides for the spiritual needs of a distant Neighbor and does not prioritize his closest blood.
  You know how to conduct yourself. Do not worry if you receive ingratitude. What she (Iside, the mother of Maria Valtorta) does not give you, I will give you. Intensify your sacrifice for her.”
• Catechesis of September 24: You undergo all the ruins that overwhelm you because you are not humble and not gentle. Neither in Families, nor in your occupations and professions, nor in the wider framework of Nations. Pride and anger dominate you and are the cause of so many of your crimes.
• Catechesis of September 25: Adulterous and accursed is he who breaks a union, first desired, through a whim of the flesh or moral intolerance. If one or the other says that their union is now a burden or a source of disgust, I tell them that God has given human beings intelligence and the faculty to reflect so that they use it, especially in situations of such grave importance as forming a new Family.
• Catechesis of October 1: In fact, I tell you truly that between him who kills a body in a fit of anger and him who kills a Soul or a reputation by a slow and premeditated action, and between him who steals a handbag and him who steals a person from his Family, those who are guilty against the spirit are much more guilty than the others. And this is the truth.
• Catechesis of October 14: They are capable of leaving home and Family to come to the Sun of their Soul. And I do not refer, Maria, to those who enter the monastery. There are beings who, while living within their Family, ‘leave it out of love for me’ more than if they were behind the monastery’s double gate. You know this and know how much tears it costs to ‘Follow Me’ Against the hostile will of relatives.
• Catechesis of October 15: Oh! If the world strove to imitate Mary! Evil, in its various manifestations that range from the ruin of Souls to the ruin of Families, and from the ruin of Families to the ruin of Nations and the entire globe, would fall defeated forever, for Mary holds Evil under her virginal heel and, if Mary were your Queen and you really were her children, subjects and imitators, Evil could no longer harm you.
• Catechesis of October 16: I alone […] know the tears and Revolts of those poor creatures who did not even have this minimum of Family that is the memory of deceased parents. And my love collects these tears and my mercy laments the Revolts. Justice is not severe with these poor children born to tears and shame, but it will judge with a severe Face those who brought them into such a destiny.
• Catechesis of October 21: How many thefts you commit by stealing a place from a friend, an invention from a comrade! You are thieves, thrice thieves by doing that. You are more so than if you stole a wallet or a jewel, for without the latter one can still live, but without a paid job, one dies, and with him who had his place stolen, his Family starves.
• Catechesis of October 29: Was it not yesterday that you rejoiced in honest Good-being brought by Peace and peaceful works, sources of bread and work? Was it not yesterday, O you who live in this terrible hour, that you rejoiced in the happiness of a Family not yet dismembered and destroyed, children around the father’s table, the marriage, the husband near the wife, the father leaning over his children’s head as a master and a friend? And now? Where is all that?
• Catechesis of November 5: You love a child, a husband, a member of your Family more than God. You lose love and respect for God if he takes him from you. You love, you even worship as a God a poor human being who proclaims himself a ‘God’ and who is mud three times more than you […]. You sin to please him. If I can still pity those who sin out of disordered love for a member of their Family, I do not forgive those who sell their Conscience to power opposed to God.
• Catechesis of November 28: The Family was the first to be redeemed by God. Reconstructed as God had conceived it: two people who love each other holyly and who holyly find themselves leaning over the cradle of a newborn, and in the Kiss exchanged over this cradle, there is no trace of lust, but mutual gratitude and the mutual promise to love each other in a reciprocal way that helps and comforts.
• Catechesis of December 5: Our Family (the Holy Family) knew no faults, in any domain and for any reason. We loved each other holyly, caring for only one thing: the Son.

Notebooks 1944

• Catechesis of January 17: The Family, the children, an honest Good-being, a prosperous and peaceful Homeland, good harmony among brothers and sisters and among nations: that is what I call holy and bless. With all this, you also possess health, for an honestly lived family life gives a healthy body; you are also serene, for a trade or profession carried out honestly provides peace of Conscience; finally you possess Peace and prosperity of Homeland and your city for, by living in good harmony with your fellow citizens and with neighboring peoples, you avoid vendettas and Wars.
• Catechesis of February 26: You are murderers, O hypocrites. You do away with lives or Souls. For, know well, a school must be good or a teacher perfect, they will never be the mother, the father, the Family. These children, who have been everyone’s except yours, how can they love you with that great love which remains united deep within you as if they had their roots in you? How can these children understand you if you are strangers to them, and reciprocally? What society can arise from peoples in which the first form of society, the Family, is so arid, dead, dismembered?
• Catechesis of March 22: Some Families are not real Families, and are the source of great misfortunes that spread from inside the family cell to destroy the structures of nations and thereby threaten world Peace: these are those Families in which it is not God who dominates, but sensuality and interest, consequently affiliation to Satan. Founded on sensuality and interest, they do not rise to what is holy but, like unhealthy weeds born in the mud, they always crawl towards the earth.
• Catechesis of May 20: They flee it even today. "May his Blood fall on us!" Oh! Yes, it will fall at the last day for their To ask reason of their hatred and, since they did not want to love him, it will curse. Then I, the Mother, should I not suffer at the sight of the great number of my children who have deserved to be cursed and cut off forever from the spiritual Family of heaven, of which I am the Mother and my Jesus the Firstborn and eldest Brother?
• Catechesis of June 14: Ask, ask, ask. For all. For the good that God blesses them, for the bad that God convert them. Repeat with me: "Father, forgive them." Ask for health, Peace in Family, Peace in the world, Peace for eternity.
• Catechesis of June 21: The person guilty of sin of adultery is not only the one who sins materially, but also the one who creates the causes of the fault by placing a creature in the conditions for sin.
  This must be said not only to husbands who leave their Woman and to Women who separate from their husband, but also to the parents of both parties who sow discord between spouses through their animosity or personal Saltfishness, or even to those family friends who lie and, through their deceptions or just by exciting a small gust of wind that otherwise would disappear, provoke illusions between the two spouses capable of making common life unbearable.
• Catechesis of June 27: My favored Souls receive the same command as Abraham: "Leave your country and your kin and go to the land I will show you." This represents both a reality and a metaphor. A reality, because he who dedicates himself to me truly becomes a stranger and a stranger to his own Family.

Notebooks 1945-1950

• Catechesis of August 18, 1945: Who can judge that heaven, the priesthood of Christ or the convent is the prerogative of those who benefit from a regular Family? Is a birth certificate and all kinds of documents therefore necessary to access the joy of heaven? The only thing required to enter is holiness. Nothing more. For birth certificates pertain to what perishes and do not concern the Soul. The Soul is not born when you are born on earth. Its birth takes place the day it comes to God to obtain its eternal Peace.
• Catechesis of February 18, 1947: This work (The Gospel as Revealed to Me), is me. Not only am I the one who dictated and explained it, but I am the one living it, presenting myself to you as I was when I was mortal, in the environment around me, in the holy little world of my Family, in the broader and more diverse one depending on the individuals who composed it — my Disciples, or even broader, of all Palestine, …
• Commentaries on the Apocalypse, p. 590: How many Families know suffering, painful situations, sins! What scope for apostolate these first nuclei of human society where two people love and live in unity, like small Churches in which, like priests without Ordination, they accomplish a Good specific task, or rather two Good specific tasks: continuing creation by procreating, thus collaborating with God who creates a Soul for every person procreated by man and Woman, and engendering new adopted sons of God. At least they should do so.

In fundamental Christian texts

In the catechism of the Catholic Church

• : God summons all men dispersed by sin into unity in his Family, the Church.
• : Jesus was born into a poor Family.
• : Nazareth is a lesson in family life.
• : Christ is at the Heart of the gathering of men in the "Family of God".
• : At Nazareth, Jesus gives us the example of holiness in the daily life of the Family and work.
• : The "Family of God" is constituted and realized gradually through stages of human history.
• : They form the true Family of Jesus.
• : In Christ, men form one Family and one People of God.
• : Mutual charity and unanimous praise in the one Family of God.
• : Fruitfulness cooperation with God who wants to enlarge the divine Family.
• : The domestic Church.
• : Certain societies, such as the Family and the city, correspond more immediately to human nature. They are necessary to it.
• : The right to found a Family.
• : Excessive inequalities between peoples of the human Family.
• : The Family in God’s plan.
• : The domestic Church.
• : The Family is the original cell of social life.
• : The Family must be aided and defended.
• : The political community has the duty to honor and assist the Family.
• : Education in faith.
• : Links between the Family and the Kingdom of God.
• : Faithfulness and fruitfulness.
• : Large Families.
• : Free union and the Family.
• : The Christian Family is the first place of education in prayer.
• : Solidarity with the human Family.
• : We pray for the deliverance of the whole human Family.

Solemn document of the pope or a council defining essential points of the Catholic faith.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992).