Conf #155: Fr. Fehlner - Introduction to Coredemption Conf 2011

Three altars

A family can overcome all its problems and be very happy if it is faithful to the three altars.The first altar is the one on which we celebrate the Eucharist. Without the Eucharist we cannot face the difficulties of our job, society, and of our family.In the Eucharist we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and he gives us his body and blood, his life. In the Eucharist Jesus gives himself to all, not only to those who are pure and clean  but also to those who struggling against passions and temptations of any kind: money, sex, career, social position, etc. In the family, and in religious communities as well, we need to learn from Jesus to die to ourselves. If we want to resurrect to a life of understanding, peace and love we have to many times renounce ourselves, our personal habits, traditions, visions and opinions. This 'death' is the necessary condition for peace in the family and social life. We should not live this kind of death with a psychological depression and sadness but as a participation for the good of others. In the Eucharist Jesus Christ doesn't give us only the example of total renouncement of himself till his physical death, but he especially enables us to die to ourselves for others, he gives us a sure hope of resurrection in our family life. In the Eucharist we receive the Word of God, the Father, the power of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Jesus Christ: the Trinity is with us and in us! From God, who "causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good>> (Mt.5:45), we learn how to love all,how we should love our wife or our husband, and from him we have a power to do it. If we have problems in our family life, psychologists and doctors can help you but their help will be very limited if you don't look for the essential help: the Eucharist. Without the Eucharist we cannot live our life in peace.

The Eucharist is necessary not only in order to tolerate and to love each other but also to receive power to do the will of God. Marriage has two purposes:1] the sanctification of the spouses, 2] to collaborate with God, the only creator, to procreate children, the mission of parents, to be open to life.

The second altar is the marital bed

How many strange and distorted ideas we have on this matter! Many times intercourse is seen as something a"permitted" in the marriage and we think that only the priests and nuns who lives in celibacy are more near God. Marital intercourse is considered as something dirty, related only to the pleasure of the flesh and not to God. No, marital intercourse is the extension of the sacraments of marriage, that we celebrate in the church. In marital intercourse we obey God who says: " Be fruitful, multiply feel the earth and conquer it>> ( Gen. 1:28) and we renew the sacrament of marriage, so it is a blessing from God. Sometimes people think that the sacrament of marriage ends in the church, after that there is the normal life of the spouse is something of these and the sacrament of marriage past, finished, just to avoid living in concubinate.No,God will always follow us in our life, especially when we put into practice his will to be one. Just as the priests exercises his priesthood when he celebrates the sacraments, in the same way we exercise our sacraments of marriage when, couples married in the church, meet sexually.Finally, even marital intercourse is a moment of true offering if it is enlightened and empowered by Eucharist.

The third altar is the table at which we eat

However to be at the table together is an essential moment for communication.To pray together, to eat together, means to live together. Don't neglect Sunday as the day of the family. We have to choose between remaining faithful to God and looking for consolation in the world, knowing that the peace of the world is not the peace of Jesus.

Other recommendation

The Christian marriage is an engagement between husband and wife to help each other towards the way to Jesus Christ, and to encourage each other to have Jesus as the person always present in their family. How can a non-Christian part help the Christian part in this way towards Jesus? Therefore a marriage with a non-Catholic is not an ideal one : too many differences of traditions, mentally, way of prayer, concept of the marital life, interpretation of the Bible, theology of the Sacraments, etc.
How can we help our community: children, young people, single married, married? The Church to all. The Eucharist that we celebrate together is really for all. But in our time we need a stronger formation, in order to resist the attractions of the world (internet, TV, sex, alcohol). Very recently, on 17 January 2011, Pope Benedict XVI addressed some thousands of priests, seminarians, catechists, and families (with many children) of the Neo-Catechumenal way and said: " For more than 40 years the Neocatechumenal Way has been contributing to revive and consolidate Christian initiation in the dioceses and parishes, fostering a gradual and radical rediscovery of the riches in baptism, helping the divine life, the heavenly life that the Lord with his Incarnation, coming in our midst, being  born as one of us. This gift of God for his Church is placed "at the service of the bishops as one of the ways of the diocesan accomplishment of Christian initiation and a permanent education in the faith.
Accomplished profitability in the last few years has been the process of writing of the Statutes of the Neocatechumenal Way that, after a period of validity was approved definitively in June 2008. Another significant step carried out in these days, with the approval of the competent dicasteries of the Holt See, is the Catechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way. With these ecclesiastical seals, the Lord confirms today and entrusts to us again this precious instrument that is the Way, so that we can, in filial obedience to the Holy See and to the pastors of the Church, contribute, with new impetus and ardour, to the radical and joyful rediscovery of the gift of baptism and to offer our original contribution to the cause of the New Evangelization. The Church has recognized in the Neo-catechumenal Way a particular gift aroused by the Holy Spirit: as such, it tends naturally to inset itself in the great harmony of the  ecclesial body. In this light, we exhort to seek always a profound communion with the pastors and with all the components of the particular Churches and the very different ecclesial contexts in which we are called  to operate. The fraternal communion between the disciples of Jesus is, in fact, the first and greatest testimony to the name of Jesus Christ.