Messages to Families
Theme for World Meeting of Families in Rome
June 26, 2022
“Family love: a vocation and a path to holiness”
On the fifth anniversary of he Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia and three years after the promulgation of Gaudete et Exsultate, the aim is to emphasize the family love as a vocation and a way to holiness, and to understand and share the profound and redeeming significance of family relationships in daily life. To this end, the Meeting proposes a reading of Amoris in the light of the call to holiness spoken of in Gaudete et Exsultate.
Conjugal and family love reveals the precious gift of a life together where communion is nourished and a culture of individualism, consumption and waste is averted: “The aesthetic experience of love is expressed in that ‘gaze’ which contemplates other persons as ends in themselves.” (AL 128), and at the same time recognizes and in other people their sacred family identity as a husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, grandfather or grandmother.
As marriage and family shape a concrete experience of love (tenderness as described by Pope Francis) they demonstrate the great significance of human relationships in which joys and struggles are shared in the unfolding of daily life as people are led towards an encounter with God. This journey, when lived with fidelity and perseverance, strengthens and expressed in conjugal and family relationships. In this sense, Christian family life is a vocation and a way to holiness, an expression of “the most sttractive face of the Church.” (GE 9)
Statement of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
The next World Meeting of Families with the Holy Father has as its motto “Family love: a vocation and a path to holiness.” This motto reminds us very directly of Saint Josemaría’s preaching. The meeting will take place precisely on June 26, 2022. We especially entrust to Saint Joseph the fruit of this year dedicated to the family, asking the Holy Patriarch to grant us “the grace of graces: our conversion” (Francis, Apost. Letter Patris corde, final prayer); and also to help us be better withnesses to God’s love in our own environment, especially in the family.
Your Father blesses you with all his affection.
Monsignor Fernando Ocariz, Chicago, July 21, 2019
In his get-together with men last week the Prelate said, “All things are created for Christ, for Him, and in Him.” Therefore, we should center our entire life on Jesus. “Our prayer, our life, our spiritual life, our life of work, our family life, our apostolic life-everything should center on Jesus Christ,” he said. “Everything is for Him; the whole meaning of life, of creation, of history, is based on this truth.” The prelate said that this foundation on Christ “is where we draw the strength to be his co-operators, to have Him present in us, the identify with Him. All the apostolic work must focus on this. It is about brining others to Jesus Christ.”
Pope Francis’ message to families at the World Meeting of Families 2022
Dear families,
I invite you to continue your journey by listening to the Father who calls you: become missionaries in the ways of the world! Do not walk alone! You, young families, be guided by those who know the way, you who are further along, be companions on the journey for others. You who are lost because of difficulties, do not be overcome by sadness, trust the Love God has place in your, plead daily with the Spirit to revive it.
Announce with joy the beauty of being family! Announce to children and young people the grace of Christian marriage. Give hope to those who have none. Act as if everything depends on you, knowing that everything must be entrusted to God. Be you who “sew” the fabric of society and of a synodal Church, creating relationships, multiplying love and life. Be a sign of the living Christ, do not be afraid of what the Lord asks of you, not be generous with Him. Open yourselves to Christ, listen to Him in the silence of prayer. Accompany those who are most fragile, take charge of those who are alone, refugees, abandoned.
Be the seed of a more fraternal world! Be families with big hearts! Be the welcoming face of the Church! And please pray, always pray!
May Mary, our Mother, come to your aid when there is no more wine, be a companion in the time of silence and trial, help you to walk together with her Risen Son.