Family

Father Hardon’s writings on family explore the Catholic vision of marriage and the Christian home. These articles examine parenting, family prayer, virtue, sacramental marriage, and the role of the family in living and passing on the Catholic faith.

How to Preserve the Catholic Family

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Our subject on “How to Preserve the Catholic Family” deserves more than a single conference. It deserves not only an hour’s reflection but a lifetime of prayerful meditation. Nothing less than the survival of the Catholic Church in one county after another is at stake. Anyone who has any […]

The Role of Catholic Women Today: She is the Hope of the Family for the Third Millennium

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Our title for this conference is unusual. We are not speaking of the family in the third millennium. That would be prophetic because only God knows the future. We are speaking of the family for the third millennium. What do we mean? We mean that family life in the […]

The Family for the Third Millennium

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. We are not speaking of the family in the third millennium. That would be prophetic because only God knows the future. We are speaking of the family for the third millennium. What do we mean? We mean that family life in the closing decade of the second millennium must […]

The Eucharist: Foundation of the Christian Family

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. We do not normally associate the Holy Eucharist with marriage and the family. But we should. Without the Eucharist, there would not be a livable Sacrament of Matrimony or a stable Christian family. What are we saying? We are saying that Christ intended these two sacraments to be related […]

Humanae Vitae – Charter of the Family and the Catholic Faith

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. No single papal document in modern times has received more publicity than Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. Months before it was published on the feast of St. James the Apostle, July 25, 1968, the secular press of the world predicted a change in the Catholic Church’s position on […]

Prodigal Sons and Daughters Recapturing the Lapsed Catholic Family Members and its Part in God’s Divine Plan

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. First of all, I thank you for the privilege of speaking to you. As I’ve said more than once, my heart is in Chicago. I’ve chosen as the subject, for, I believe, two conferences, retrieving the lapsed Catholics in our families and our country. First, by way of long […]

Either Stop Contraception or Destroy the Family

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. God in His mercy allows evil that greater good may come as a result of the evil. He has allowed contraception to plague the modern world so that we may repent and return to our Father’s house. I have deliberately stated the title of this conference in uncompromising language: […]

How to Keep Your Children Catholic

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. This is surely an unusual subject for today’s conference, “How To Keep Your Children Catholic.” The subject may be unusual but it is desperately important. I would like to briefly address myself to three questions, expressed in three words, Why? What? and How? Why? I don’t think anyone here […]

The Blessed Virgin and the Sanctification of the Family

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Some time ago while in Washington, I stopped at the Georgetown University Library to check the latest issue of the monthly magazine, The Marxist Review. Sure enough, there was an article on women’s liberation. A sentence or two by way of introducing, “The Blessed Virgin and the Sanctification of […]

The Holy Family: Model for the Modern World

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Our present conference is on the Holy Family, model for the modern world. If there is one phenomenon that characterizes the modern world, especially the modern western world, it is the breakdown of family life. The most rampant divorce rate of human history, which in some cities in the […]

The Survival of the Catholic Family

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The Catholic family in super-developed countries like the United States is on trial for its existence. This is not my personal opinion but the measured judgment of the Vicars of Christ. One modern pope after another keeps warning the faithful about the deadly struggle going on in the world […]

The Christian Family: Parents For Eternal Life

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The family as a group of persons of common ancestry began with the human race. But if we are to understand the meaning of the Christian family, we should know something of the family in pre-Christian times. The reason is that Christ elevated the family to a dignity and […]

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