Family

Statue of the Holy Family

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

1. The "Family of God" which encompasses the Church in its universal meaning 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 for families and inspires them, notably through the hidden life in Nazareth.
3. The social family composed of a man and a woman, united in marriage, and their children. This unit, constitutive of society, is imposed on public authority. It is the normal reference point by which various kinship forms must be judged.

In all these meanings of the term, Jesus recommends, in the work of Maria Valtorta, taking inspiration from the example of the Virgin Mary.-

The "Family of God" and the human family

Jesus establishes from the beginning of his public life the notion of family within his disciples ( and ). He extends it to the entire world ( and ), then to the communion of saints.

Within this framework, he introduces the practice 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 single family of God, "when mutual charity and unanimous praise of the Most Holy Trinity make us share with one another, all of us, sons of God who make in Christ but one family, we respond to the profound vocation of the Church."

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

"Church" must be understood in its universal — and not institutional — sense, as rightly 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 beauty, 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 to have 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 return 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 updates it for our time: this model is especially for Christian families of this particular and painful moment.

The social family

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

Where today are the families in which work is made loved by the young children to teach them to please their parents? Children now are tyrants in the home. 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. It is that, by making your sons violent and angry, you separate yourselves from them with shameful absenteeism.

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

This fundamental nucleus, according to its mode of development, is the seed of harmony or disagreement:

In order not to always be bad brothers, and spouses one day adulterous, one must learn respect for the family from the earliest age, an organism which 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 the oldest; because established by God when the idea of homeland, of country did not yet exist, but the family nucleus was already alive and active, source for the race and for the races, a small kingdom where 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 truly a family does not hold 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 alone. The family, 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, to assist it, to ensure notably:

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

In "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me"

The "Family of God" and the human family

• I want you to love one another without preferences, helping one another, making a good face to each other […] You are like the sons of a holy family. There are many different characters in it […] If you were all alike, one would impose by force, and all others would be diminished. Thus, on the contrary, you form a perfect union because you complement each other…
• Here are brothers. I want this to be the name you give each other and consider yourselves as such. You are like one family. When is a family prosperous and admired by the world? When there is union and harmony. If one son becomes the enemy of the other, if one brother harms the other, can the prosperity of that family ever last? No. It is in vain that the head of the family strives to work, smooth difficulties, and impose himself on the world. His efforts remain fruitless, because resources crumble, difficulties increase, the world mocks this state of perpetual trials that crumble affections and goods — which, united, were powerful against the world — into a heap of small, petty opposing interests, from which the enemies of the family profit to accelerate even more its ruin.
• 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 jobs […] All professions are necessary, all holy, if they all do their work with honesty and justice. How can one achieve this, if Satan tempts us from 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 peasants) You will be united with other good and pious peasants and form one family where you can talk about God and his Word without using subterfuges. Support one another in faith. Help one another. Be indulgent to the faults of others. Be one another a cause for 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 a lesson for you as for all. It is a lesson of humility, resignation, perfect understanding, proposed as an example to all Christian families and particularly to the Christian families 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. Know it. Holily, because in Her all was holy, but deeply […] Now, she felt alone, like a branch cut from the vine to which her life was bound […] Before, it was the unity where each family member supported the others. Now, the main wall was lacking, the first blow struck against this Family, announcement of the very close separation from the beloved Jesus.
• (Catechesis) As a conclusion to the hidden life of Jesus.
• It is not right that the family where a saint lives, be exempt from the inevitable misfortunes of life.

The social family

• Where today are the families where work is made loved by the young children to teach them to please their parents? Children now are tyrants 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. It is that by making your sons violent and angry, you separate from them with shameful absenteeism.
  They are everybody’s sons. But to you they do not belong, oh parents of the 20th century. They are much more the sons of the nursemaid, the teacher, they belong to the school, …
• To avoid always being bad brothers and adulterous spouses one day, one must learn respect for the family from the earliest age, an organism which 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 the oldest; because established by God when the idea of homeland, of country did not yet exist, but the family nucleus was already alive and active, source for the race and for the races, a small kingdom where 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 truly a family does not hold without obedience, respect, economy, good will, love of work, affection. (Introduction to the commentary on "Honor your father and your mother" ).
• General or particular misfortunes, like wars or ruins in one or two families, where do they come from? From selfishness which is lack of love. And with the ruins of the families come also material ruin by a punishment of God, for God sooner or later always strikes the one who lives without love.
• What are the world wars and the family wars, and those of professions, if not injustices in action?

In other works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1943

• Catechesis of June 16: I taught you to prefer purity and continence over lust, sobriety over debauchery, faithfulness over deceit, 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, sincerity over lying, respect for innocence over scandal, faith over disbelief, sacrifice over enjoyment. But all these things, I, your God, have done before you.
• Catechesis of June 30: I do not destroy your emotional wealth. I take it from the earth to transplant it to Heaven. There will be rebuilt for eternity the holy family ties, pure friendships, all those forms of honest and blessed affection which I, Son of God made man, desired for myself and which I 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 family ties. I have sanctified them. I said to love kin with a supernatural love. And is there a greater love than to have charity towards the souls sick of our blood? Would it seem normal to you that someone cared about the interests of all but not his own? No: you would say he is mad. It is also foreign to justice that someone provides spiritual needs to his distant neighbor but does not put his closest blood first.
  You know how to regulate your conduct. Do not worry if you receive ingratitude. What she (Iside, mother of Maria Valtorta) does not give you, I will give you. Intensify your sacrifice for her.”
• Catechesis of September 24: You endure all the ruins that overwhelm you because you are not humble and you are 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 many of your crimes.
• Catechesis of September 25: Adulterous and accursed is he who breaks a union, first desired, by a whim of the flesh or moral intolerance. If he or she says that their union is now a burden or source of disgust for them, I tell them that God gave human beings intelligence and the faculty of reflection so that they use it, especially in situations of such grave importance as the formation of a new family.
• Catechesis of October 1: Indeed, I tell you in truth that between the one who kills a body in a movement of anger and the one who kills a soul or a reputation by a slow and premeditated action, and between the one who steals a handbag and the one who steals a person from his family, those who harm the Spirit are much more guilty than others. And that 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 am not referring, Maria, to those who enter the monastery. There are beings who, while living within their family, ‘leave it for love of me’ more than if they were behind the double gate of a monastery. You know something about it and you know how many tears it costs to ‘follow Me’ against the hostile will of their own.
• Catechesis of October 15: Oh! If the world tried to imitate Mary! Evil, in its various manifestations ranging from the ruin of souls to the ruin of families, and from the ruin of families to the ruin of Nations and the whole globe, would be forever defeated, for Mary holds Evil under her virginal heel and, if Mary were your Queen and you were truly her children, subjects and imitators, Evil could no longer harm you.
• Catechesis of October 16: I alone […] know the tears and rebellions of those poor creatures who have not even had that minimum of family which constitutes the memory of deceased parents. And my love gathers these tears and my mercy pities the rebellions. Justice is not severe with these poor children born to tears and shame, but it will judge with a stern face those who have 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 companion! You are thieves, thrice thieves in doing this. You are more so than if you stole a wallet or jewelry, for without the latter one can still live, but without a paid job one dies, and with the one whose place was stolen, his family starves.
• Catechesis of October 29: Wasn't it yesterday that you enjoyed honest well-being brought by peace and peaceful works, sources of bread and work? Wasn't it yesterday, oh you who live in this terrible hour, that you enjoyed 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 heads 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 towards God if He takes him from you. You love, you even worship like 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 by disordered love of a family member, I do not forgive those who sell their conscience to a power contrary to God.
• Catechesis of November 28: The Family was the first to be redeemed by God. Rebuilt as God had conceived it: two people who love each other saintly and saintly reunited leaning over a newborn’s cradle, and in the kiss they exchange above that cradle there is no flavor of lust, but mutual gratitude and the mutual promise to love one another with a reciprocal love which helps and comforts.
• Catechesis of December 5: Our family (the Holy Family) knew no faults, in any domain or for any reason. We loved each other, saintly concerned about one thing only: the Son.

The Notebooks of 1944

• Catechesis of January 17: The family, children, honest well-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, because an honestly lived family life gives a healthy body; you are also serene, because an honestly carried out trade or profession provides peace of conscience; finally you possess peace and prosperity of the homeland and your city because, living in good harmony with your fellow citizens and neighboring peoples, you avoid rancors and wars.
• Catechesis of February 26: You are murderers, oh hypocrites. You suppress lives or souls. For know this well, a school may be good or a teacher perfect, but they will never be mother, father, the family. These children, which have been everyone’s except yours, how can they love you with that great love which remains united deep in 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 come from peoples where the first form of society, the family, is so arid, dead, dismembered?
• Catechesis of March 22: Some families are not true families, and cause great misfortunes that spread from within the family cell to destroy the structures of nations and thereby threaten world peace: these are the 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 mud, always crawl towards the earth.
• Catechesis of May 20: They still flee him today. "May his Blood fall upon us!" Oh! Yes, it will fall on the last day to ask them for their hatred and, since they did not want to love Him, He will curse. Then I, the Mother, should not suffer at the sight of the great number of my children who 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 the Elder Brother?
• Catechesis of June 14: Ask, ask, ask. For all. For the good so that God blesses them; for the bad so that God converts them. Repeat with me: "Father, forgive them." Ask for health, peace in the family, peace in the world, peace for eternity.
• Catechesis of June 21: The person guilty of adultery sin is not only the one who sins materially, but also the one who creates the causes for the fault by putting a creature in conditions of sin.
  This must be said not only to husbands who leave their wives and wives who separate from their husbands, but also to the parents of both parties who sow discord between spouses by their hostility or personal selfishness, or to those family friends liars who, by their deceptions or simply by stirring up a quarrel that otherwise would disappear, cause illusions between the spouses capable of making communal life unbearable.
• Catechesis of June 27: My favorite 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 the one who dedicates himself to me truly becomes a stranger and a stranger to his own family.

Notebooks of 1945 to 1950

• Catechesis of August 18, 1945: Who can judge that heaven, the priesthood of Christ or the monastery is the prerogative of those who benefit from a regular family? Is a birth certificate and all kinds of documents necessary to access the joy of heaven? The only thing required is holiness. Nothing more. For birth certificates end at 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 it was revealed to me), is me. Not only did I dictate and explain it, but I live it, who present myself to you as I was when I was mortal, in the environment that surrounded me, in the little holy world of my family, in the broader and more diverse one depending on the individuals who composed it — that of my disciples — or else the still wider one of all Palestine,…
• Commentaries on the Apocalypse, p. 590: How many families experience suffering, painful situations, sins! What a domain of apostolate are these first nuclei of human society where two people love each other and live in unity, like small churches in which, as priests without ordination, they carry out a very specific task, or rather two specific tasks: continue creation by begetting, thus cooperating with God who creates a soul for every person begotten by man and woman, and beget new adoptive sons of God. At least they should do so.

In fundamental Christian texts

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• : God calls together all men scattered by sin into the unity of 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."
• : In Nazareth, Jesus gives us the example of holiness in the daily life of family and work.
• : The "family of God" is constituted and realized gradually throughout the stages of human history.
• : They constitute the true family of Jesus.
• : In Christ, men form one single family and one People of God.
• : Mutual charity and unanimous praise in the unique family of God.
• : Fruitfulness cooperation with God who wants to enlarge the divine family.
• : the domestic church.
• : Some societies, such as the family and the city, correspond more immediately to the nature of man. They are necessary for him.
• : The right to found a family.
• : Excessive inequalities among 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.
• : Fidelity and fruitfulness.
• : Large families.
• : Free union and the family.
• : The Christian family is the primary place of education to prayer.
• : Solidarity with the human family.
• : We pray for the deliverance of the entire human family.