The reflection on the married couple Frédéric and Amelie Ozanam and Conjugal Holiness in the Vincentian chrism continues!
Ozanam And His Home…A Family To Serve The Poor With A Vincentian Flavour
If the proverb that states that “charity begins at home” is valid, then it was in this home that human and Christian virtues were forged. If any family lived this richness at home, it was the family of Federico and Amelia, a living and pure source that was passed on to their daughter Maria. Fortunately for us, we have reliable first-hand sources that bear witness to this.
Here is one of them: Ozanam also spent precious time with his daughter, Marie, whom he taught to read. When Maria was two and a half years old, Frederic and Amelia took her with them to visit the poor in rue Mouffetard. There, in the slums of the poor, an exceptional woman, the now Blessed Sister Rosalie Rendu, had shown the way of the poor to Frederick and his companions. Frederic and Amelia never stopped going to the poor, and they took their daughter, little Maria, with them. She helped by giving small things to the poor, including toys of her own to the children. Her parents were teaching her, from an early age, to share.
It is possible that there are more events in the path of holiness of this couple, but this fact of life is enough to corroborate how the ascent towards God took place on the path that these three souls travelled, in the midst of the poor who, in the end, led them to the summit of family holiness.
However, how much we would have liked to see Amelia and Maria on the altars with Federico, as Luis and Celia Martin with their daughter Therese of Lisieux, or Isidro Labrador and Maria de la Cabeza, but it doesn’t matter! Frederick is at the main door and Amelia with Mary, they are the saints at the side door, those who have no niches, flowers or haloes in our temples, but a glorious seat in the House of the Lord.
Your Inspiration For Today
Married life is the vocation in which most Christians can become saints. God’s will is that the family should walk the Christian path of life together. It is a pilgrimage, it is a common project, although in the end neither husband nor wife can take personal responsibility for the other in responding to God’s call.
The ground is everyday life, where holiness is born, grows and bears fruit. Let us come down from reflection, to land on some ways in which men and women build their holiness together:
- The Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation AMORIS LAETITIA of Pope Francis (19 March 2016), in paragraphs 90 – 119, develops the Pauline text of 1 Corinthians 13, 4 – 7. How many times would the Ozanam household read the hymn of charity in the warmth of candlelight?
- We can neither believe nor make up this home, because as far as we can read their story, they lived in the midst of human weaknesses, but in sincere communication, a reality that did not prevent them from growing in reconciliation, in dialogue to resolve conflicts, taking advantage of these differences to make their home a fruitful marriage.
- And finally, to affirm that it was a home in the style of Nazareth, where, in addition to the previous human realities , the Lord was at the centre of their lives, with an intense spirituality that guided them and led them to the sanctity of their own home and to a generous dedication to the poorest of the poor.
How special to see that Vincentian holiness has already blossomed in the Vincentian Missionaries, in the Daughters of Charity and in the immense number of lay people who exercise their Christian vocation from earthly realities, as in such outstanding figures as Frederick, Amelia and Mary… the Ozanam Soulacroix family.
Marlio Nasayó Liévano, c.m.
