Hand-in-Hand in Heaven
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - October 17, 2008
When I meet with couples preparing for marriage, we always discuss why Christian marriage is a sacrament. The ultimate purpose of every sacrament is to make those who receive it holy, to make them saints. Marriage is no exception. The Church teaches that marriage has a two-fold purpose: the mutual sanctification of the spouses and the procreation and education of children.
In the course of our conversations, I try to help the couples to grasp this reality. If their marriage lasts 60 years, and they're blessed with wonderful kids, good health, lots of friends, professional and personal prestige, but one of them does not make it to heaven, then their marriage has failed. On the other hand, if their marriage is an earthly illustration of "poorer, sicker, and worse" but they help each other to cross the eternal finish line, then their marriage will, in the final analysis, have been successful.
Once a future bride and groom grasp that marriage is a gift of God to make them holy, other things start to fall into place. They resolve to learn and to live the faith better so that they can help the other to do so. They begin to pray together, to accompany the other to Mass and to confession, and to encourage each other to live by the Lord's commandments. They start to examine whether they mostly bring the other to the Lord or drag the other away. They begin to look at the question of children from the perspective of eternal joys rather than earthly sacrifices.
Many of the happiest moments of my priesthood have occurred when I have witnessed couples begin to see that the greatest gift they can give each other is not themselves but the gift of God.
Thoughts about the sacrament of marriage are prominent for me today because on Sunday in Lisieux, France, there will be the joint beatification of Louis and Marie Zélie Martin, a couple that has fulfilled the purpose of the sacrament of marriage.
While there have been many individual saints who have been married, the Martins, the parents of St. Thérèse, will be only the fourth couple raised to the altars together. They will join Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Saints Priscilla and Aquila, the friends and collaborators of St. Paul; and Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi, a 20th century Italian couple whom Pope John Paul II beatified seven years ago this weekend.
That the Quattrocchis and the Martins will both have been beatified on World Mission Sunday is not, I'm convinced, coincidental. One of the most important means by which the Church carries out her mission to proclaim the Gospel is through holy marriages, which not only are images of the communion of persons in the Blessed Trinity but also reflections and participations in the love of Christ Jesus for his bride, the Church.
Since I wrote about the Martins back in July when their upcoming beatification was announced, I'd like to focus, as we prepare for this Mission Sunday, on the Quattrocchis, whose beatification, John Paul II said, was one of the high points of his pontificate.
Luigi Quattrocchi married Maria Corsini on November 25, 1905 at St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome. Luigi was a 25 year-old attorney from Rome and Maria was a 21 year-old writer and teacher from Florence. Three children were born in their first four years of marriage, Filippo, Cesare and Stefania, which made their household noisy and lively from the beginning. Four years later, Maria conceived again, but experienced such severe problems in her pregnancy that her doctors counseled her to abort her child in order to save her own life. They gave her less than a five-percent chance of survival if she tried to carry the pregnancy to term. Yet she heroically refused to take the life of her baby. Together with Luigi she placed her life and that of their growing child in the hands of the Lord and prayed. Maria suffered enormously during the pregnancy, but both she and her daughter, Enrichetta, survived.
The Quattrocchis were a very modern couple. Luigi worked for the Italian government and used his legal skills to help out with various Catholic organizations including Catholic Action. Maria was fluent in French and English, read extensively, and authored multiple books on the mother's role in educating her children which are still considered classics in Italy. They were partakers in Rome's rich cultural life and political strife.
Despite all the bustling activity at home, Luigi and Maria always made sure that God came first. Every morning they would attend Mass together and at night they would pray the Rosary as a family. They consecrated their family to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and placed the certificate of their consecration on the mantelpiece of their dining room. On the first Friday of each month, they would go as a family to pray a holy hour of Eucharistic adoration. Once a year they would attend weekend retreats at the Monastery of St. Paul's Outside the Walls.
Their love for God translated naturally into love for others. In order to help form the boys from poor families, Luigi and Maria started a scout troop for which they served as den leaders. Later, during Italy's war in Ethiopia and World War II, Maria worked as a volunteer nurse for the Red Cross to care for wounded Italian soldiers.
In a house with God so much at its center, it is not surprising that the children would respond to the Lord's call to place their lives at his service. Filippo became a priest for the Diocese of Rome, Cesare a Trappist monk and Stefania a Benedictine nun. Enrichetta never married and happily spent her life serving the Lord in the person of her parents. "We brought them up in the faith," Maria wrote in one of her books, "so that they might know and love God."
The parents were holy, happy, and also human. Cesare recalled that like all couples they occasionally argued and "when it was needed, they gave us punishments, reprimands and even a good slap."
Their house was continually open to friends and strangers who knocked on their door asking for food. During the Second World War, those knocks became more desperate. Luigi and Maria put their lives on the line to hide Jews in their apartment. On various occasions when German patrols were in the neighborhood, they even dressed the Jewish men in their sons' priestly garb so that they would escape Nazi roundups.
They were married for 46 years. Luigi died of a heart attack in 1951 at the age of 71. Maria passed into eternity 14 years later.
At their beatification in 2001, attended by 50,000, something beautiful and unique in Church history occurred. Not only were their two sons and Enrichetta able to be present for the ceremony, but Filippo and Cesare, both in their 90s, were among the Pope's principal concelebrants.
When John Paul II was asked by the Congregation to help resolve the issue of when to celebrate their feast day, since they had died on different days of the year, he made a revolutionary decision: the Church would mark their passage into heaven on November 25, the day they were married and began, through the sacrament, their journey to the eternal wedding banquet.
There, with the Martins, Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi remain as powerful intercessors and role models for Catholic married couples, showing them what Christian marriage is and where it is supposed to lead.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
