“My faith was darkened by doubts”

One day, along a promenade by the sea, a group of people caught my attention. They were singing casually as they were having a picnic and as I approached them, I realised that the songs were religious ones. I stopped and kept on listening and watching them. My faith was darkened by doubts. Is there a God? If there is one, how can all this evil prevail? How do believers claim that everything comes from God, and yet still worship Him? I was not happy with just accepting whatever I heard at Catechism classes and during homilies. I wanted to experience God.

Something was attracting me to that group of people. One of them saw me and gestured to us to join them. We did. He started to talk to us about God’s love, and as he went on, all I could think of was that perhaps these people had found what I was so ardently looking for. After a long chat and a glass of wine, he invited us to attend the weekly prayer meeting they held at Ta’ Ġiezu Church, Valletta.

“How could I ever forgive my father after such a difficult father daughter relationship?”

The following Thursday we were there. The meeting was already half way, because we were late. As I kneeled there, I knew that He was asking me to forgive my father. He was verbally abusive, and with time I learnt to defy him well. I was at a point where I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as he was.

I told the Lord that I didn’t know how I could ever forgive my father, but that I was willing to if it was He who was asking me to do it. That very moment, it was like a huge burden was lifted off my chest. I was filled with anger and resentment and I never realised how much these feelings were weighing me down, until I was set free.

“Although everything remained the same, everything changed”

From that moment on, although everything remained the same, everything changed. With God’s help I stopped answering him back. With time I even tried to reach out to him and speak kindly to him. Sometimes it was very difficult and it was a struggle. Yet it is true, God is near to those who call upon his name and helps them.

As I continued in my journey, my questions still remained. However from that point onwards something was very different: God was not some distant figured, blurred in the fog of irrelevance, but a loving Father, who, when I was so eagerly looking for Him, he came and found me. Now I realise that what changed mostly was not what was being said. I was changing. With a revival of God’s Spirit in me and with renewed faith I started to understand.

“I don’t remember my father ever going to Church but he accepted that I pray with him”

Years passed. I got married and started having kids. By then my father got sick and when his health was quickly deteriorating, I felt that God called me to do the most difficult thing I have ever had to do, till this very day. A few days before the Holy week I felt in my heart that I needed to go to my father and pray with him. I don’t ever remember him going to church, and the only times I had heard him speak God’s name was in vain. I prayed and fasted for 5 days and on Good Friday, which happened to be on his birthday, I went to visit him. I cried all the way to his house, so scared was I. Trembling I gave him his birthday gift and I asked him for a gift in return: that he allows me to say a prayer with him. And he did. I put my hands in his and we prayed.

  “I felt so grateful”

One year later, he was admitted to Boffa hospital. I was still praying for him to make peace with God. Then, one day my mother called me to tell me that he had received the sacrament of confession. No words can explain the joy I felt that day. No words. As days went by we never left his side even though most of the time he was heavily sedated. One night it was my turn to stay beside him. He was having a lucid moment: he was aware that it was raining, when a nurse came in. My father turned to him and said: “What a daughter I have: I am not worthy of her . And those words seemed to make up for all the other words spoken in the past, for all the difficulties in our father daughter relationship. I was healed. A few days later my father passed away. Those were the last words I heard him say. I am eternally grateful for those words.

“All things work together for good for those who love God”

Yes. There is a God. And he is all good. All merciful. All powerful. I don’t believe that bad things like suffering and sickness come from Him, but I know that “all things work together for good for those who love God.” Romans 8:28

Published: April 2018

Read more:
– Overcoming Fear – “Do Not Be Afraid”
– The Poor Boy Who Became A Successful Entrepreneur And A Happy Husband

Watch:

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Family is important to Christians because family is about witnessing to the Lord’s faithful love for the Church and for the whole of humanity; family is about making present, in a concrete and daily manner, the reciprocity and beauty of the love that characterises God’s life. Family is a rich school where we learn to be humane and generous, to be patient and steadfast, to be just and merciful, to be faithful and committed, to be together and to connect.

Single parented or mother-father; childless or fertile; in big cities or in the countryside; in harmony or in conflict/domestic violence; in home country or refugees; at peace or at war, married or cohabitating, separated or remarried; healthy or in illness/addiction, free or in prison, in a house or homeless, able or disabled, working locally or away from home, with or without pets; whatever the family… all families are precious in the eyes of God.

The Catholic Church believes that the best form of family, both for the couple itself and for children to grow up in, is a one man-one woman permanent relationship in the sacrament of marriage, where each lives for the other and receives the other in a dynamic of reciprocal love. Other forms of family , including cohabiting or civilly married couples, separated, divorced and not remarried, divorced and remarried and single-parent families and unions between gay persons , are accompanied gently and respectfully by the Church. New ways of dialogue and pastoral attention are currently being explored in these areas where the Church, guided by tenderness and compassion learns to accompany different persons in different family situations to make all feel included and welcome, even if they feel misunderstood and abandoned in their own family, as they seek to follow the Lord.

Further reading:

– The Christian Family in the Modern World – A letter written by Saint Pope John Paul 2nd to the clergy and faithful of the Catholic Church in 1981.
– Blended Families – Resources than help prevent re-divorce and help strengthen stepfamilies. “On the Church – Cardinal Walter Kasper speaks about family concerns guided “not from abstract reasoning but from pastoral care.
– “To Live Without Fear , Statement by the Canadian bishops on Violence Against Women.
– Coping With Marriage Breakdown – Anna’s Experience

The post Why is Family Important to Christians? appeared first on Universe of Faith.

Fr Paul Galea from the University of Malta replies on how important the family is:

There is no doubt that the ideal family exists only in the textbooks. The criticism above is partly justified by the idealisation of the family. Although people have no choice as to which family they are born, it is inconceivable not to have one, and being deprived of one can be a much worse experience. Evolution has made it that the human offspring takes longer to be weaned and to start living independently. Ironically, the higher the standard of living the longer it takes to separate.

The argument that there are many who do not speak to members of their family or who spend fortunes to undo negative emotional experiences is a confirmation of the importance and relevance of the family especially in the development of the child. That something can go wrong at any stage of development is a misfortune that can happen also to the best of families.

What is more of concern behind such argumentations is the ideology that supports them. As contemporary society becomes more individualistic there is less appreciation of family ties. As the family becomes more variegated emotional bonds with strangers become more important than blood relationships. Furthermore, what we are seeing today is an anthropological regression as fathers become less and less involved in the life and upbringing of their offspring.

The biggest challenge to our families, however, is how to reconcile other interests with those of the family. Because of career and work people put family interests on hold, including procreation which follows a different schedule. The individual pursuit of happiness is severely challenged by the heavy toll that a family can exert. Dedication to a family requires an adherence to certain values and ideals. In their absence it is more convenient to underrate the importance of the family.

Read more:
– Top Pope Francis’ Quotes About Family
– Big Family Decisions

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1. Respect Your Parents

“Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Exodus 20:12

2. Parents Know What’s Good For Their Offspring

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! “
Matthew 7:9-11

3. What You Sow, You Reap

“Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray. “
Proverbs 22:6

Read more:

– Teaching Faith To Children – Faith sharing Ideas By Bishop Mario Grech
– Top Popes’ Quotes About Children

The post Bible Verses About Family Love appeared first on Universe of Faith.

I met her again after many years at a school reunion for ex-pupils. We sat happily at the same table, and talked: rather, she talked, and I listened. She had much more to say than I. Unlike me, she had married, and her three children were now young adults, with good jobs. However, she was soon telling me of the bitter disappointment her marriage was to her.

Her children, especially two of them, girls, behaved quite unlovingly. She was old-fashioned enough to expect them to help in the home, as she had done, but they never did. It was always time to go to the beach, or somewhere else, or they brought some other excuse. Their rooms were always topsy-turvy. This lack of sensitivity on their part was rendering their mother very unhappy, and, on account of their “irresponsible behaviour , there was continual bickering even between herself and their father.

What could I, single, teacher, catechist, say to all this? I felt there was only one thing I could say, that could, perhaps, give her some hope, and bring her comfort:

“We need to pray. Prayer never goes unheeded.

She paused, then looked at me with sad eyes, and said something, which though commonplace, has remained with me all these long years. In a subdued voice, she whispered:

“You know, in my family we never pray. We never find time for it.

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Family Quote 1 – Dolly Parton

“Some are preachers, some are gay
Some are addicts, drunks and strays
But not one is turned away, when it’s family.”
Family , a song of Dolly Parton

Family Quote 2 – Mother Teresa

“Love beings at home,
and it is not how much we do but how much love we put in it.”
Mother Teresa

Family Quote 3 – Evan Esar

“Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space,
the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.”
Evan Esar

Family Quote 4 – Stasi Eldredge

“A mother’s heart is a vast and glorious thing. My mother’s heart was expansive, having been enlarged by suffering and years of clinging to Jesus while being misunderstood, dismissed, and judged by those she loved most. Me included. It had cost her to love, had cost her much to mother. It always does. But she would tell you that it’s worth it, that there is no other way.”
Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul

Family Quote 5 – Matthew Henry

“They who pray in the family, do well.
They who read and pray, do better.
But they who sing, and read, and pray, do best of all.”
Matthew Henry

Read more:
– Good Education Quotes By Catholic Headteacher
– Teaching Faith To Children – Ideas For Parents By Bishop Mario Grech

The post Family Quotes By Famous People appeared first on Universe of Faith.

1. Take care of those who are the least among you- St Augustine Of Hippo

“Do not neglect then the least of those belonging to you, look after the salvation of all your household with all vigilance.”
St Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 44 on the New Testament

2. Love is greater than space and time – St John Chrysostom

“For such is the power of love, it embraces, and unites, and fastens together not only those who are present, and near, and visible but also those who are far distant; and neither length of time, nor separation in space, nor anything else of that kind can break up and sunder in pieces the affection of the soul.
St John Chrysostom, Letter to a young widow

Thank you to Fr Jonathan Farrugia from Malta and Mike Aquilina from Canada for their support in compiling the Fathers Of The Church quotes.

Read more:
– Who Are The Fathers Of The Church?
– God Quotes From The Fathers Of The Church

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“When I look back on my life I realise that I was faced with some challenging decisions which have affected the course of my life. My father passed away at quite a young age and left my mother a widow when my husband and I were still starting our own family. I was torn between trying to care for my family and my widowed mother at the same time or pursuing my career as a teacher.

Together with my husband, I opted for the first. I made it a point to help my mother lead as happy a life as possible especially as she became older and lonelier. I tried to include her in as many activities as possible and she became an extended part of our family. Although she lived alone she knew we cared for her and she never felt lonely. Now that she too has passed away at the venerable age of 83, I can still remember her beaming smile whenever I called for her to take her out for a coffee or to spend the day with my family.  I feel nothing but joy when I remember that I was there for her when she needed me!”

Read more:
– Top Pope Francis’ Quotes About Family
– Headteacher Quotes on Good Education

The post Big Family Decisions appeared first on Universe of Faith.

1. A Tired Family Is Better Than A Hard-Hearted One

“I prefer a family with a tired face from sacrifices made rather than a pretty one which is unfamiliar with tenderness and compassion.
Pope Francis, Mexico, 2016

2. A Family That Tries Is Better Than A Family Obsessed With Luxury

“I prefer a family that tries to begin and again tries to begin again, to a family and a society that is narcissistic and obsessed with luxury and comfort.
Pope Francis, Mexico, 2016

3. Love And Hope Overcome The Crosses We Experience In Family Life

“In families, we argue; in families, sometimes the plates fly; in families, the children give us headaches. And I’m not even going to mention the mother-in-law. But in families, there is always, always, the cross. Always. Because the love of God, of the Son of God, also opened for us this path. But, in families as well, after the cross, there is the resurrection…The family is , forgive the term I’ll use , it is a factory of hope, of hope of life and of resurrection. God was the one who opened this path In families, there are difficulties, but these difficulties are overcome with love.”
Pope Francis, Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, 2015

4. The Family Whether We Like It Or Not Is The Foundation Of Society

“The family is important, and it is necessary for the survival of humanity. Without the family, the cultural survival of the human race would be at risk. The family, whether we like it or not, is the foundation.
Pope Francis, Radio Interview, Brazil, July 27th, 2013

Read more:
– Good Education Quotes By Catholic Headteacher
– Pope Francis’ And Pope John Paul’s Quotes About Children

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