Pope outlines vision for next World Meeting for Families

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has written a letter to Cardinal Kevin Farrell outlining his vision for 9th World Meeting of Families, which will take place in Dublin in August 2018.

The letter, dated 25 Mar 2017, was presented by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of Vatican Office for Laity, Family and Life, to the organisers at the Vatican press office on Mar 30.

The theme of the meeting is “The Gospel of the Family: Joy for the World.” The Pope noted that Cardinal Farrell has “the task of translating in a special way the teaching of Amoris Laetitia, with which the Church wishes families always to be in step, in that inner pilgrimage that is the manifestation of authentic life.”

Outlining his “indications” for the meeting, the Pope wrote:
I wish to underline how important it is for families to ask themselves often if they live based on love, for love and in love. In practice, this means giving oneself, forgiving, not losing patience, anticipating the other, respecting. How much better family life would be if every day we lived according to the words, “please”, “thank you” and “I’m sorry.”

Every day we have the experience of fragility and weakness, and therefore we all, families and pastors, are in need of renewed humility that forms the desire to form ourselves, to educate and be educated, to help and be helped, to accompany, discern and integrate all men of good will.

I dream of an outbound Church, not a self-referential one, a Church that does not pass by far from man’s wounds, a merciful Church that proclaims the heart of the revelation of God as Love, which is Mercy. It is this very mercy that makes us new in love; and we know how much Christian families are a place of mercy and witnesses of mercy, and even more so after the extraordinary Jubilee. – CWN