MFP 291: Finding the Lord in Others

Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

Growing in holiness doesn’t require extraordinary actions, it requires doing ordinary things with great love. And there is nothing more “ordinary” in the life of a child than a parent.

Summary

Often when people talk about life with children, the focus is on just getting through their childhood with your sanity in one piece! There is some truth to that because parenting can be the most challenging thing you may ever do, but we would like to offer a different perspective. What if we did allow family life to change us? What if we allowed it to change us for the better? Jesus wants to teach us how to love Him by loving our spouse and our children. They are the first neighbors that we are called to love and serve and this, as lay people, is our path to holiness. Listen in to this honest conversation about the challenges of loving those closest to us as we would love Jesus Himself.

Key Takeaways

• If you are a frantic family you will resent the sacrifices that naturally come with family life. Fruitful families embrace these sacrifices.

• Our world does not prize the ordinary so we can think that to be holy we need to do extraordinary things.

• The true measure of how much you love the Lord is the measure by which you love that person in your life who is most difficult

• Mark 9 - “Whoever receives such a child in my name, receives me. And if you receive me, you receive the one who sent me”

• Matthew 25 - “Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”

• Jesus doesn’t ask us to love an ideal. He asks us to love actual people in our lives as we would love Him.

Couple Discussion questions

• Think of a person in your life who shows God’s love to others. What do they do? How do they do it? What can you imitate?

• “Whoever receives such a child in my name, receives me. And if you receive me, you receive the one who sent me” Who am I being called to “receive” right now in my state in life? What are my thoughts on this person being Jesus?

• What is one small, practical way in which I can love my husband or wife better, starting today? How can I receive their love more fully?