List of points

“If any man comes to me without hating his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life too, he can be no disciple of mine.”

Every day I see more clearly, Lord, that family ties, if they do not pass through your most lovable Heart, are, for some, a permanent source of the cross; for others they are a cause of more or less direct temptation against perseverance; for others again, the reason why they are totally ineffective; and, for all, a dead weight which impedes their total surrender.

The devil, father of lies and victim of his own pride, tries to imitate the Lord even in the way he seeks converts. Have you noticed that in the same way as God makes use of men to save souls and lead them to holiness, so does satan use other people to impede that work and even to bring them to ruin? And — don’t be frightened — in the same way as Jesus seeks those who were nearest, relatives, friends or colleagues to be instruments, the devil also often attempts to get the people we love most to lead us into evil.

That is why, if the bonds of blood-relationship tie us down and hinder us from following the ways of God, we should cut them promptly. And perhaps your resolve will also release others who were being entangled in the nets of Lucifer.

The Master said: “I have come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter with her mother, and the daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law…” If you fulfil what he demands of you, you will show you really love them. That is why you must not use the whole-hearted affection you should have for them as a shield when the moment comes for personal sacrifice. Otherwise, believe me, you will be putting love for your parents before the love of God. And you will be putting your own self-love before love for your parents.

—Do you now understand more deeply the relevance of those words of the Gospel?