More About the Holy Family Institute

SOMETHING

NEW

FOR THE

FAMILY!

FAMILY LIFE TODAY



Good Christian families are the best guarantee of a social life lived according to Christian principles. In spie of all the bad news we hear, there is also the good news: the quiet, hidden homes in which parents and chldren love each other and love God and the Church.

The Divine Master led you to find this booklet and we would like to think that your family is a good one, but that you would want it to be even better.

You can do this by first living better personally and then helping other family members to live better.

How do you live better ? By a regime of long hours of prayer, fasting, denying yourself sleep and similar practices?



YOUR LIFE TODAY


Not so. In fact, if you open the Gospel you will find that Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived exactly like their neighbors in Nazareth and NO ONE ever suspected that they were in any way different.

Why? Because they were NOT different...on the outside. On the inside, hoever, they were very different. Mary was "full of grace". Joseph lived in perfect union wiht her and Jesus was GOD!

That was their secret. What they WERE, not what they did.

And you too, can begin to live as they did. You can live a new life in the old circumstances: your present family life, but lived with a different purpose.



A BETTER LIFE


Actually, you began to live a better life the day you were baptized: you were already human and then you became human-divine. And you are human-divine now. The Lord is with you. You hope to be happy with him forever in heaven and you will, because you are already close to him on earth.

But you can be closer. How?

The usual way is to pray, receive the Sacraments and keep in touch with the Lord during the day. But there is another, more exciting way: you can consecrate yourself to serve him!! You can become part of an international movement of dedicated family people called THE HOLY FAMILY INSTITUTE. Let us tell you more.


WHAT CONSECRATION MEANS


By consecration you place yourself in the consecrated state, just as in marriage you placed yourself in the married state. In marriage each spouse is a gift to the other and, in a similar way, by consecration you make a gift of yourself to the Lord and he makes a special gift of himself to you!

Just as after Baptism you are no longer merely human, but human-divine, a child of God, entitled to heaven, so also, after consecration you are more divine--so to speak--closer to God. Your daiy life is now more valuable even though unchanged on the outside.

This is the remarkable blessing the HOLY FAMILY INSTITUTE offers you in this new century!



BECOMING CONSECRATED


To enter the consecrated state, you make vows of married chastity (observance of the Church law in your marriage), Poverty (living in a moderate lifestyle) and Obedience (observance of Church and Civil laws).

Will this make your life difficult? Not at all. You are probably living that way anyway as are tens of thousands of good married people.

Can married people actually make vows? Of course. In fact they have already made them in their marriage. We are not taking about vows of Religious, but a free offering of your married life to God, (not privately (e.g. in Confession), but publicly, in a Church-regulated ceremony.


THE GIFT OF CONSECRATION


What is the benefit of vows and consecration?

A vow is an “act of religion”. By “act of religion” we mean an act done specially for God: prayer, fasting, alms, hearing Mass, making a pilgrimage, etc. You normally do these things only from time to time, but when you vow yourself in the Institute, ALL your daily thoughts, words and actions become acts of religion, a constant prayer to God! This is the wonderful privilege the HOLY FAMILY INSTITUE confers!

But there is more: the Institute is not a lone entity. It is a branch of the Pauline Family, an international Religious Family of Priests, Brothers, Sisters and consecrated people, married and single.



THE PAULINE FAMILY


Being part of a Religious Family is one great privilege of Institute membership, but there is another: the work of the Pauline Family in the Church is the spread of the Gospel, evangelization. Evangelization, now and always, is the principal mission of the Church. If she were to abandon the preaching of the Gospel she would eventually disappear. Moreover the Pauline Family evangelizes with modern means of communication: “the media”, and the media are the most effective way of preaching the Gospel in our time.

This combination of consecrated married life with the most important Church work offers the Institute member an unsurpassable way to serve the Lord and live closer to Him.



WHERE THE FAMILY WORKS


The Pauline Family is working today in 63 countries and numbers about 11,000. As an Institute member you share in this preaching of the Gospel, but in unity with the Priests, Brothers and Sisters, NOT as a collaborator or cooperator. This is a remarkable blessing and we have to praise and thank our Divine mater for giving this very special gift to His Church and to his married or widowed people. Yes, widows and widowers can also join and find much new joy and fulfillment in a life which could not be more useful to the Church and to the many millions living outside her. We are dismayed, correctly, to think of the starving peoples of the world, but have we never stopped to think of the far more numerous millions living in danger of damnation?



INSTITUTE ADVANTAGES


· All your good thoughts, words and actions have an increased spiritual value.

· You are involved with the work of the Pauline Family, the most important work in the Church: evangelization.

· You have clear and sensible guidelines for your spiritual life, concentrating your energies on well-defined goals.

· Preparation for membership is by media: literature and CD’s which can be consulted at any time convenient for you.

· The Institute asks for ten minutes of prayer twice daily and an examination of conscience. You are probably doing more!



BETTER AND BETTER…


· You are constantly supported in your efforts to cultivate your good points and eliminate defects, thus allowing the Lord to “grow” in you and, to that extent, to make the same married and family life more useful spiritually.

· You have found the way to use the graces of your marriage to the full.

· You have the friendship and support of other members who are united in spirit and prayer and whom you can meet personally at our annual Triduum of “3 Days of Prayer and Friendship” and with whom you can keep in touch by letter, phone or e-mail. If you have children they are very welcome to this annual gathering.



A FINAL WORD



In the Institute your married/family life need not change much externally, but it becomes inspired with a new and modern spiritual purpose. What a joy this is: to feel that every day you are living your life in the most fulfilling and useful way! Through your dedication to your daily duties—at home or in the workplace—you are calling God’s mercy down on families broken and destroyed by the very media the Pauline Family uses. We pass this way just once. Decide now to turn your day into continuous acts of reparation, love, praise and worship of God.