Notes for this theme
Reading comfort
GRM 36.8
True love is not selfish. And true love is always chaste, even if it is not perfect in chastity as the love of the two virgin spouses. Chastity united with charity yields a suite of other virtues and therefore two people who love each other chastely become perfect.
GRM 36.9
In that house they love work, and they would love it even if there was plenty of money, because the working man obeys the command of God and frees himself from vice, which like tenacious ivy clenches and suffocates idle people, who are like immovable rocks. Food is good, rest is serene, hearts are happy, when you have worked well and you enjoy the resting time between one job and the next one. Neither in the houses nor in the minds of those who love work, can various vices arise. And, in its absence, love, esteem, mutual respect prosper and tender children grow in a pure atmosphere and they thus become the origin of future holy families.
Maria has just seen a vision of the Holy Family in Egypt.
GRM 36.9
Humility reigns in that house. What a lesson of humility for the proud. Mary, from a human point of view, had a thousand reasons to be proud and to be adored by Her spouse. Many women are proud only because they are a little better educated, or of nobler birth, or of a wealthier family than their husbands. Mary is the Spouse and the Mother of God, and yet She serves — and does not expect to be served — Her consort, and She is full of love for him. Joseph is the head of the family, judged by God so worthy of being the head of a family, as to be entrusted by God with the guardianship of the Word Incarnate and the Spouse of the Eternal Spirit. And yet he is anxious to relieve Mary of Her work, and he takes care of the most humble jobs in the house so that Mary may not get tired, not only, but whenever he can he does his best to please Her and make Her house more comfortable and Her little garden more beautiful.
Maria has just seen a vision of the Holy Family in Egypt.
GRM 36.9
In that house order is respected: supernatural, moral, material. God is the Supreme Head and He is worshipped and loved: supernatural order. Joseph is the head of the family and he is loved, respected and obeyed: moral order. The house is a gift of God as well as the clothes and the furnishings. The Providence of God is shown in everything, of God Who supplied wool to sheep, feathers to birds, grass to meadows, hay to animals, grains and branches to birds, Who weaves the dress of the lily of the valley. The house, the dresses, the furnishings are accepted with gratitude, blessing the divine hand that supplies them, looking after them with respect as gifts of the Lord, without any bad humour because they are poor, without ill use, without abusing Divine Providence: material order.
Maria has just seen a vision of the Holy Family in Egypt.
GRM 37.8
37.8 Finally I would like to draw the attention of parents to how Joseph made a clever workman of Me, without any help of pedagogical learning. As soon as I was old enough to handle tools, he did not let Me lead a life of idleness, but he made Me work and he made use of My love for Mary as the means to spur Me to work. I was to make useful things for Mother. That is how he inculcated the respect which every son should have for his mother and the teaching for the future carpenter was based on that respectful and loving incentive.
Where are now the families in which the little ones are taught to love work as a means of pleasing their parents? Children, nowadays, are the tyrants of the house. They grow hard, indifferent, ill-mannered towards their parents. They consider their parents as their servants, their slaves. They do not love their parents and they are scarcely loved by them. The reason is that, while you allow your children to become objectionable, overbearing fellows, you become detached from them with shameful indifference.
They are everybody’s children, except yours, o parents of the twentieth century. They are the children of the nurse, of the governess, of the boarding schools, if you are rich people. They belong to their companions, they are the children of the streets, of the schools, if you are poor. But they are not yours. You, mothers, give birth to them and that is all. And you, fathers, do exactly the same. But a son is not only flesh. He has a mind, a heart, a soul. Believe Me, no one is more entitled and more obliged than a father and a mother to form that mind, that heart, that soul.
Jesus showed Maria the first lesson in Jesus' work. He gives a dictation and pauses on a final point.
GRM 37.9
37.9 A family is necessary: it exists and must exist. There is no theory or progress capable of destroying this truth without causing ruin. A shattered family can but yield men and women who in the future will be more perverted, and will cause greater and greater ruin. And I tell you most solemnly that it would be better if there were no more marriages and no more children on the earth, rather than have families less united than the tribes of monkeys, families which are not schools of virtue, of work, of love, of religion, but a babel in which everyone lives on his own like disengaged gears, which end up by breaking.
Broken families. You break up the most holy way of social living and you see and suffer the consequences. You may continue thus, if you so wish. But do not complain if this world is becoming a deeper and deeper hell, a dwelling place of monsters who devour families and nations. You want it. Let it be so.
GRM 38.7
ou do not necessarily spoil your children just because you keep them at home. To keep them at home implies loving them with good common sense and wholeheartedly.
GRM 38.8
You must keep their attention and let them relax at the same time. You must understand them, love them, and be loved by them, if you wish to get good results.
Mary agrees to teach Jude and James of Alphaeus and she says:
GRM 39.4
My Jesus needs love to be happy.
GRM 40.4
40.4 They give Jesus three different rolls saying: «Read the one closed with the golden ribbon.»
Jesus opens the roll and reads. It is the Decalogue. But after the first few words, one of the judges takes the roll from Him saying: «Go on by heart.» Jesus continues so sure of Himself, that He seems to be reading. Every time He mentions the Lord, He bows down deeply.
«Who taught You that? Why do You do that?»
«Because that Name is holy and it is to be pronounced with a sign of internal and external respect. Subjects bow down to their king, who is king only for a short time and he is dust. To the King of kings, the Most High Lord of Israel, Who is present even if He is only visible to the spirit, shall not every creature bow down since every creature depends on Him with eternal subjection?»