Everything is Grace - Family Reflection Video

Just being with you for less than 24 hours, having “seen with our own eyes and touched with our own hands” (cf. 1John 1:1) what the Risen Lord in your midst has accomplished and continues to accomplish through Holy Cross Family Ministries, especially with the signing of the Memorandum of Collaboration a while ago between the International Confederation of Christian Family Movements and Holy Cross Family Ministries, there’s more meaning to our acclamation in the Responsorial Psalm: Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord!

Truly, nothing happens by chance. Everything is grace, pure gift of God. We are making history for the glory of God and the fulfillment of God’s plan for families. What Divine Providence it is - our encounter today among other possible dates - that we have it on the Feast of St. Mark, the Evangelist, a faithful companion of the apostle Paul on his first missionary journey and a disciple of Peter, and who wrote the first gospel from Peter’s point of view.

We can never fully imagine what the Risen Lord can do as a result of our collaboration so that we fulfill in a synodal way the Great Commission we are reminded of by St. Mark in today’s gospel: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

Even though at that time it may have sounded absolutely impossible, yet we admire the great trust of the first apostles in obeying the great command of the Lord. We also pray at this Mass that we may have that same trust to fulfill God’s plan for our Movements and Ministries!

Journeying together with the Risen Lord among us, there’s so much we can do to realize even more what we experienced and committed to proclaim during the Tenth World Meeting of Families last year in Rome: “Family Love: a Vocation and a Path to Holiness”!

Responding to the challenge of the Working Document for the Synod on Synodality that urges us to “enlarge the space of our tent” (cf. Is 54:2), today the International Confederation of Christian Family Movements and Holy Cross Family Ministries signed the Memorandum of Collaboration because we mutually believe we have a lot to learn and share with one another how best to effectively defend marriage and family life amidst 

• what Pope Francis called the 'piecemeal World War III' and ongoing armed conflicts in many parts of the world, 
• the climate emergency we are experiencing now yet oftentimes still being denied or ignored, 
• the increasing inequality affecting more than 70 percent of the global population over these pandemic years when the top 1% have managed to seize nearly two-thirds of the $42 trillion in newly-created wealth, and
• which further aggravated the changing family life where two-parent households are declining while divorce, remarriage and cohabitation are on the rise; families getting smaller now, both due to the growth of single-parent households, the drop in fertility and the changing circumstances surrounding parenthood, like for example, while before babies typically arrived within marriage, today four-in-ten births occur to women who are single or living with a non-marital partner. At the same time there is a significant change in the role of mothers in the workplace - and in the home since more mothers have entered the labor force, more have become breadwinners - in many cases, even primary breadwinners - in their families.

Given our present situation, the historic signing of the Memorandum of Collaboration is so providential and timely because the charism of the Congregation of the Holy Cross founded by Blessed Basile Moreau is still contemporary and urgent: that is, “to renew the Christian faith, to regenerate society, to 'bring about better times' by a constant response to the most pressing needs of the Church and society” and the motto he gave to his Congregation is “the Cross, our only hope.”

Moreover, Venerable Patrick Peyton, founder of the Family Rosary Crusade, has a clear and tested response to our present crisis: “The family that prays together stays together”; “A world at prayer is a world at peace”; “The Rosary is a chain that binds the family together”; “The Rosary has saved the world in the past. It will save the world now, by saving the family.” For certainly Blessed Basile Moreau is right in teaching that “in prayer faith is revived, hope is nourished, and love rekindled.” Saint André Bessette, a Holy Cross brother, is a good example of this spiritual legacy of Blessed Basile Moreau.

It is our strong conviction that we can effectively realize together “Family Love as a Vocation and a Path to Holiness”!

Let me close with these words from St. Peter from our first reading today and this famous prayer to our Lady of St. Louis de Montfort:

Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your brothers and sisters throughout the world undergo the same sufferings. The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ Jesus will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little. To him be dominion forever.  Amen.

“We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.”

Most Reverend Gerardo A. Alminaza, D.D. is the Bishop of the Diocese of San Carlos, Negros Island, Philippines, and the International Chaplain of the International Confederation of Christian Family Movements.

• Today’s readings

• Bishop Gerardo Alminaza's inspirational homily was recorded live this morning during Mass at the Father Peyton Center. Please view the video on our Facebook page. (You don't need a Facebook account to view.) 
• To view Rosary prayer and Mass streaming live, please visit our Facebook page at 11:30 am Eastern, Monday – Friday. Please invite your loved ones to join us too! (You don't need a Facebook account to view.)