Devotion of the day: imitating the fortress of the Holy Family

We praise and bless you, O Holy Family, for the virtue of fortitude, shown through full trust in him who always abundantly helps and gives strength to those who invoke him.

Human weakness, when it is clothed with the grace of God, is transformed into the strength of giants. The Virgin Mary believed and experienced this truth when the archangel St. Gabriel appeared to her to announce that she was to become the Mother of the Savior of the world. At first she was disturbed, because the message seemed too big and impossible; but after St. Gabriel himself explains that nothing is impossible for God, the humble Virgin pronounces those words which constitute the basis and foundation of an extraordinary interior strength: “Here I am, I am the servant of the Lord. May what you said happen to me ”. Mary lived within herself that extraordinary strength which comes from God and which she had learned from the scripture which says: 'Yahweh is vigor that strengthens mountains, raises the seas and makes enemies tremble ”. Or again: 'God is my strength and my shield, in him my heart has trusted and I have been helped ”. Singing the "Magnificat" the Virgin will say that God raises the humble and gives strength to the weak to do great things.

Joseph, with the strength of his hands, obtained what was necessary for the sustenance of the family, but the true strength, that of the spirit, came to him from his unlimited trust in God. When King Herod threatens the life of the Child Jesus, he asks help to the Lord, and immediately an angel tells him to take the road to Egypt. During the long walk he felt strong of the presence of the Child Messiah and of a particular help from above. They were for him and for Mary a comfort and a security that sustained them in the moment of trial.

It was a tradition among the Jews to consider God the help of the poor, the widow and the orphan: Mary and Joseph had learned this tradition directly from the sacred scriptures they heard in the synagogue; and this was a reason for safety for them. When they took the Child Jesus to the temple to offer him to the Lord, they glimpsed the frightening shadow of the cross in the distance; but when the shadow becomes reality, the fortress of Mary at the foot of the cross will appear to the world as an example of extraordinary importance.

Thank you, O Holy Family, for this testimony!