MARFAM WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTER 25 JUNE 2025
2025 FW 25 June CORPUS CHRISTI AND THE FAMILY
In the last 3 weeks some important feastdays were celebrated throughout the Church: Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. And still to come is the feast of the Sacred Heart, one which is getting more attention at this time. This week’s newsletter is in some ways a testimony from my own spiritual journey and incorporates the June theme of Children Belong in Families too.
My experience of Corpus Christi was about processions, reverence and singing. In Johannesburg at the Rand Stadium, at boarding school in Aliwal North, in procession through the township. It was certainly about devotion and reverence but not like my spirituality of today.
The Sacred Heart also played a role, as Aliwal North was a Sacred Heart diocese. Around SA there are many Sacred Heart congregations of priests and religious and the Sacred Heart sodality is one of the largest in the country. There were devotions such as dedication of a home or regular daily offerings but this devotion was never a great favourite of mine. At one time I found I could not relate to the image of Jesus, meek and mild. Jesus for me had to be more robust, an activist or alternatively the “laughing Jesus.” Each of our personal spiritual journeys are journeys of growth, as individuals but also as families and as we discovered along the way as couples too.
Each of the feast of this time has God as its main focus, the Trinity together and as individual members. One of the most important aspects is their relationship, the Trinity as the most perfect and intimate community of love, a family.
Pope Francis in chapter 1 of Amoris Laetitia 10-13 unpacks the theology of marriage, as a reflection of the Trinity, a symbol and image. “Our God in his deepest mystery is not solitude but a family for he has within himself fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the family which is love. That love in the divine family is the Holy Spirit.” He describes the human family as a reflection of the Trinity and the couple’s fruitfulness as a living and effective image and a visible sign of God’s creative act. In his theology St Paul relates the couple to the mystery of the union of Christ and the Church in Eph 5:21-32
Jesus himself quoted from Genesis 1 and 2. “The man shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one” a profound harmony, a closeness both physical and interior to such an extent that the word used describes our union with God. The marital union is thus not only about its sexual and corporal dimension, but also in its voluntary self-giving love.“
In Chris and my own marriage journey, which started to deepen after our Marriage Encounter experience in 1979 and later in Catholic Engaged Encounter where we share with the engaged the prayer OUR FATHER’S CALL TO A COUPLE. The prayer includes the images of sacrament, children, Jesus and the Church.
We began to reflect on how this unity applies in the Eucharist with the words, “this is my body given up for you.” Given to one another in all areas of daily life as a couple but also as parents for our children. This couple image has become my reflection on the feast of Corpus Christi, even though it is 25 years since Chris’ death in 2000. We saw this understanding as an essence of the sacrament of Matrimony and aimed to implement it in practice. But in practice it was not always easy to belong in that deep sense, and yet still be an autonomous individual, with work, w hobbies, interests and children. . I believe this is a constant human struggle for loving couples to emulate and achieve what God as Trinity models and expresses in such fullness. Our ministry in Retrouvaille, the programme for hurting marriages was a part of our lives
In Laudato si 235-6 Pope Francis also refers to sacramental signs with the Eucharst expressing God’s presence in all of creation and nature. “Christianity does not reject matter and bodiliness is considered in all its value in the liturgical act, whereby the human body is disclosed in its inner nature as a temple of the Holy Spirit and is united with the Lord Jesus. In the Eucharist the whole cosmos gives thanks to God, it joins heaven and earth, embraces and penetrates all creation.”
Blessed Carlo Acutis, was a young teenager with a particular devotion to the Eucharist. Born in 1991 he died in 2006 of leukemia. Already as a young child he inspired his parents with his passion and aim were to live his life “Close to Jesus.” As a typical teenager he was a soccer fan, loved computer games but as a self-taught computer programmer he built a website and an exhibition on Eucharistic miracles around the world. His sanctity has already been recognized and he was to be canonized during the Jubilee of the Youth but this will be celebrated later in the year.
Dilexit Nos- Love and the Sacred Heart of Jesus was Pope Francis’ 4th and last encyclical where the Sacred Heart presents another dimension to our relationship with Jesus which I found very meaningful. . He begins by exploring the concept and essence of the heart in a deeply relational way. He refers to the human and divine love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and gives examples from the saints and his own insights.
“Everything finds its unity in the heart, which can be the dwelling-place of love in all its spiritual, psychic and even physical dimensions. In a word, if love reigns in our heart, we become, in a complete way, the persons we are meant to be, for every human being is created above all else for love.” DN 21. John Henry Newman said, “ beyond all our thoughts and ideas, the Lord saves us by speaking to our hearts from his Sacred Heart. This realization led him, (the distinguished intellectual), to recognize that his deepest encounter with himself and with the Lord came not from his reading or reflection, but from his prayerful dialogue, heart to heart, with Christ, alive and present. It was in the Eucharist that Newman encountered the living heart of Jesus, capable of setting us free, giving meaning to each moment of our lives, and bestowing true peace: DN 26
Pope Leo XIV has chosen the Sacred Heart as his prayer intention for the month of June. “I invite you, the faithful to pray “that each one of us might find consolation in a personal relationship with Jesus, and from His Heart, learn to have compassion on the world.” Those sentiments are becoming more and more my dearest wishes at this time, in my widowhood, the last stage of marriage, my spiritual pilgrimage, a journey to being a sign of hope. TR
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
June 25. Fr Sylvester and the parish family coordinator had been asked by some of the parents to set aside time to discuss with the youth the issue of teenage pregnancy. “Why are there so many young girls with babies in our churches? Is this good? Is this a free choice? Is there a false prophet out there somewhere, like peer pressure, that makes this out to be a good thing? They wanted the girls and the boys as well to have their say and listened carefully to search for a suitable response.
Reflect, share and act. Scripture: Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” Matt 7:15-20. Pope Francis to youth. At this point in life you feel a great longing for freedom. Freedom is the gift of being able to choose the good. Love is a free gift, a responsibility but a noble responsibility and a daily task. It is nurtured by trust, respect and forgiveness. From The Year of Mercy and the Jubilee for Youth. 2016. JUBILEE. Hope, together with faith and charity, makes up the triptych of the “theological virtues,” fath, hope and charity, that express the heart of the Christian life (cf. 1 Cor 13:13; 1 Thess 1:3). In their inseparable unity, hope is the virtue that, so to speak, gives inward direction and purpose to the life of believers. For this reason, the Apostle Paul encourages us to “rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, and persevere in prayer” (Rom 12:12). Act and pray. For the needs of families and children as appropriate.
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