Dear friends,
On the Old Roman Calendar, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Raphael. This Feast was moved when the Roman Calendar was revised in 1969 when the three Archangels Sts. Michael, Gabriel and Raphael were combined.
Let us invoke the powerful intercession of the Archangel St. Raphael for the healing of marriages throughout the world.
Recently, a friend sent me this link. It is an open letter to priests about the importance of marriage. It is short and to the point. I thought it was important enough to endorse and to see that the letter gets out far and wide.
In the 1930’s, Sr. Lucia, one of the Fatima visionaries said that the greatest attack of our times would be again marriage and family. St. John Paul II would re-echo this and assert that when marriage falls then civilization falls. He was known for saying that marriage is the fundamental building block of society.
Please share this open letter to priests far and wide. Print it out and mail a personal copy to your parish priest. In most cases, this will affirm priests that they are doing the right thing, but there are some priests that need encouragement from the lay faithful that they want solid teaching and instruction from their priests concerning marriage and family.
We all know people who are struggling and have possibly been effected ourselves by a broken marriage. We cannot remain silent on the Church’s obligation to preach clearly on the Sacramentality of Marriage. As the following letter states–
“Most of us have not heard what God’s plan for marriage is, yet we have heard that everyone is arguing about what constitutes a sacramental marriage. It feels like we have been abandoned and left to figure it out in our own. As we strive to live God’s plan, we are burdened with what the society tells us. The culture screams its message, but the silence of the Church is at times louder than the screams.”
St. Raphael, pray and intercede for the healing of all marriages!
http://www.padreperegrino.org/2017/10/24/family-to-priest/
In Christ,
Father John Paul