https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...ried-couple-patrons-world-meeting-of-families First married couple to be beatified together featured at World Meeting of Families Relics of the first married couple to be beatified together by the Catholic Church can be venerated inside St. Peter’s Basilica this week during the World Meeting of Families in Rome. Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi are the official patrons of the 10th World Meeting of Families taking place in Rome on June 22-26. The Italian couple was married for 45 years, enduring two world wars together and nurturing their four children’s vocations in service of the Church amid unprecedented difficulties facing Europe. Both of their sons became priests in the 1930s and went on to concelebrate the beatification Mass of their parents with John Paul II in 2001. Their eldest son, Father Tarcisio Beltrame, a Benedictine monk, and his younger brother Father Paolino, a Trappist, both risked their lives to secretly work with the resistance during the Nazi occupation of Italy in World War II, while the Beltrame Quattrocchi family’s apartment in Rome served as a hiding place for fugitives and Italians with Jewish heritage. A living relative of the Beltrame Quattrocchi family says that he has documents from the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) confirming the sons’ collaboration in the Resistance movement, which was made even riskier by the fact that the family’s apartment was located right by the headquarters of the German command in Rome. “If they had been discovered they would have all been immediately shot,” Francesco Beltrame Quattrocchi told EWTN. The Beltrame Quattrocchis’ daughters also enthusiastically served the Church. Their eldest daughter, Stefania, entered a Benedictine monastery as a nun in 1927. And the youngest child in their family, Enrichetta Beltrame Quattrocchi, was a lay consecrated woman who has been declared venerable. ‘Extraordinarily rich spiritual life’ At the root of their children’s vocations and the courageous witness of the Beltrame Quattrocchi family during times of trial was the rich spiritual foundation within Luigi and Maria’s marriage. When St. John Paul II beatified Luigi and Maria in 2001, he said that the blessed married couple “lived an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.” “Among the joys and anxieties of a normal family, they knew how to live an extraordinarily rich spiritual life. At the center of their life was the daily Eucharist as well as devotion to the Virgin Mary, to whom they prayed every evening with the rosary,” he said. Luigi and Maria lived lives of heroic virtue together as spouses and parents. The couple was married in the Basilica of St. Mary Major on Nov. 25, 1905. Luigi was 25 years old and Maria was 21. A plaque commemorating their marriage can be seen in the basilica’s Corsini chapel today. After being married in Rome’s largest Marian basilica, the couple later entrusted their family and all their children to Our Lady of Divine Love. The Beltrame Quattrocchi children. Courtesy of Diocese of Rome “This couple lived married love and service to life in the light of the Gospel and with great human intensity. With full responsibility they assumed the task of collaborating with God in procreation, dedicating themselves generously to their children, to teach them, guide them and direct them to discovering his plan of love,” John Paul II said. “From this fertile spiritual terrain sprang vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life, which shows how, with their common roots in the spousal love of the Lord, marriage, and virginity may be closely connected and reciprocally enlightening.”
This really cheered me up this morning when I saw it. I can be in shadow of sadness on account of my sins. This family reminded me that with God's grace all things are possible. Do you notice in the photos how smiling and happy they all are? Wonderful.
I love to hear about, 'Ordinary', saints like this. They make real holiness seem so very possible. I see that during the Second World War they put up Jewish folk in their Roman Apartment, right next to German Headquarters. If caught they would have both been shot at once, maybe out of hand. Just shot. When I read or hear of things like this I wonder to myself, if I had been there would I have risked this to help others? Many, many Catholics at the time throughout Italy and Europe did the same thing. Even Pope Pius x11 had Jews lodged in his own apartment in the Vatican, though folks forget this. It reminds me of the words of Jesus , 'Greater love has no man than this, than he lay down his life for another'. The German Commandant in Rome at the time was a guy called Herbert Kappler. He was later convicted of war crimes and spent the rest of his life in jail. But he converted there and became a good Catholic. An Irish priest from the Vatican . An Irish Priest Father Hugh O'Flaherty was his only visitor. Father Hugh helped thousands of Jews escape the Nazis ;also Allied Servicemen who were trying to escape. At the end of the war Fr Hugh helped Kapple'rs family escape to South America. This after Kappler spent all his time trying to kill Father O'Flaherty. Herbert Kappler (middle) Father Hugh O'Flaherty. Who knows perhaps even Hubert Kappler became a saint before his death in prison. Nice thought. Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
