Over many Easter holidays, I have had the great joy of being reunited with my family out of town. With five kids grown and out of the house and five still at home, it's amazing how beautiful and precious little things like Legos scattered around the house or tennis shoes lying in the hallway can become when they belong to younger brothers and sisters.
As the oldest I certainly used to help divvy out the candy stash. Now on these visits I go into the pantry to get some sweets, just to find that little "mice" have discovered it first and neatly put the container back in its place – empty. I can only shake my head and grin.
At night I easily give into the temptation to extend bedtime by fooling around with the younger boys or sit up talking with the older kids – to the point where Mom comes in to see where all the laughter and noise is coming from. After proven guilty, I sleepily, but happily go to my own bed, thankful for such joys in life.
Maybe because I am now an adult or perhaps because I don't get to see my family very often due to distance, I have grown to appreciate the beauties of family life even more than I did before. I love to watch families, to observe the love and sacrifice that mothers and fathers pour into their marriage and into the lives of their children. It inspires me and warms my heart.
Even the frustrations and challenges within family life encourage me and bolster my patience with life in general. If family members can pull together in spite of each others' quirks, faults and even major mistakes, isn't that a cause for hope?
My parents' sacrifices and generosity have been the impetus behind my own desire to give myself wholeheartedly to God's will. There are often times when selfishness, fear or fatigue weigh me down and tempt me to give up, give in and bow out. However, then I look at Mom and Dad; raising 10 children they daily found themselves climbing Calvary, embracing the Cross and dying to self. No one is perfect and, of course, they made mistakes as everyone does, but they persevered. With their witness before me, I bring my "pity party" to a quick close and find the inspiration to try again.
That is the way it should be. Within the home, children learn sacrifice. Yes, it hurts and there are many sacrifices to make in communal living. However, just as Good Friday eventually rolled into Holy Saturday which turned into Easter Sunday, the joys of a family's sacrificial love are abundant and fruitful!
Our beloved St. John Paul II canonized many lay men and women so that families in the world could find inspiration and encouragement to pursue heroic virtue and holiness of life. One of these, whose feast we celebrate on April 28 and who with St. John Paul II is co-patron of this month's World Meeting of Families, was St. Gianna Molla, a wife, mother and physician. She chose to sacrifice her own life in a serious medical situation instead of aborting her unborn baby. Her mother's heart and love nurtured that child with every ounce of her being and ultimately with her very life.
However, she was not alone in that difficult decision. No, she and her husband Pietro discussed this together, doubt-less shedding many tears over the heavy cross that had been presented before them and laid upon their shoulders. Together they chose to turn their marriage over to God in a radical way, thus giving their children and the world a heroic example of Christian family life.
Their daughter Gianna Emanuela was born on Holy Saturday, 1962. One week later the brave mother died, leaving Pietro a widower and father of four young children.
Gianna had offered her life in a heroic and selfless way for her daughter. Pietro completed the sacrifice by experiencing the loneliness of his loss for 48 years and by lovingly and selflessly raising and nurturing his children.
The Molla family is one concrete and contemporary example of how the family is called to reflect the love of the Trinity and the sacrificial love of Christ for His Bride, the Church. However, Gianna and Pietro's decision was not an isolated judgment made during that final pregnancy. Instead, it was a choice they could make because they had built their marriage and family life on the firm foundation of their Catholic faith.
St. Gianna once wrote in a letter to her husband, "With God's help and blessing, we will do all we can to make our new family a little cenacle where Jesus will reign over all our affections, desires, and actions... We will be working with God in His creation; in this way, we can give Him children who will love and serve Him."
Every family is unique in how they feel called to raise their children, but every single family must keep the faith at the heart of their home.
Sister Mary Raphael, DVM, is a member of the Daughters of the Virgin Mother, a community dedicated to serving the spiritual and practical needs of the priesthood and of seminarians in the Diocese of Charlotte.