“Let us love Jesus above all, let us love Mary as our mother; but then, how could we keep from loving Joseph, who was so intimately united to both Jesus and Mary? And how can we honor him better than by imitating his virtues? Now, what else did he do in all his life but contemplate, study, and adore Jesus, even in the midst of his daily labors? Behold, therefore, our model.”
"Relationships are a blessing and a responsibility. This task of love modeled on the quiet, simple, and pure love of The Holy Family help guide us especially amid the noise and distraction of modern times and culture. To embrace the model of The Holy Family is counter-cultural. We should acknowledge that striving for that model intricately weaves joy and sorrow, life and death, cradles and crosses, acceptance and exile, sacrifice and suffering, laughter and tears together. Through the crucible of my relationship, my stubborn, broken heart is slowly purified through the fiery forge of imperfect, human love that mirrors the perfect love of the Holy Trinity.
"Perfect love casts out fear. Many good, Catholic men contributed to my fear by running away from suffering or the possibility of suffering by placing the burden of their fears on me... these experiences almost made me despair in Catholic dating and question my place in the Catholic community as a worthy, valuable woman. In the end, an unlikely man ended up being the conduit for healing. In the five and half years I’ve known the man I’m courting, which we have been both friends and dated during those years, pieces of me have been restored and repaired similar to fine china broken into pieces and strengthened when re-glued. The cracks and imperfections are visible but the beauty and pattern remains. Our relationship is imperfect as we are as individuals and as a couple. The glue that binds us together is Divine Mercy and the Ocean of Mercy we find ourselves drowned in..."
“A community that gets rid of someone — a community that is allowed to, and can, and wants to get rid of someone when he no longer is able to run around as the same attractive or useful member — has thoroughly misunderstood itself... Even if all of a person’s organs have given out, and he no longer can speak for himself, he nevertheless remains a human being. Moreover, to those who live around him, he remains an ongoing appeal to their inner nobility, to their inner capacity to love, and to their sacrificial strength. Take away people’s capacity to care for their sick and to heal them, and you make the human being into a predator, an egotistical predator that really only thinks of his own nice existence.”
