{"id":342454,"date":"2013-10-29T06:40:39","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T05:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/families-with-pope-francis\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:10:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:10:47","slug":"families-with-pope-francis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/families-with-pope-francis\/","title":{"rendered":"Families with Pope Francis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The families came from around the world for their appointment with Pope Francis<\/strong> on October 26- 27, 2013, for an event that was part of the Year of Faith. The title of the meeting had been promoted by the Pontifical Council for the Family: Family, experience the joy of faith.<\/em> It was a festive St. Peter\u2019s Square that welcomed 100,000 people from 75 countries. Mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandchildren, countless children . . . all listening to pope Francis, amidst the applause, song and hundreds of colourful flying balloons. Families from several parts of the globe shared their stories. Among them: a family belonging to the Focolare Movement\u2019s New Families<\/a>, a movement that collaborated with many others in bringing about the event. Three European couples expressed their intention to marry \u201cdespite everything;\u201d a married couple with their son in their arms, announced the arrival of a second child; a family shared its courageous choice to join the missions; another well-known family on the island of Lampedusa in southern Italy assisted in saving several Eritrean refugees; then, one Nigerian shipwreck survivor on the same island; another family was forced to flee because of the war. . . \u201cLife is often tiring, many times it is tragic. . . ,\u201d commented the Pope after hearing them speak. But what is really burdensome is the lack of love.\u201d The pope invited families not to believe in the \u2018throw-away\u2019 culture,\u2019 that chops life into pieces. \u201cChristian spouses are not na\u00efve,\u201d he pointed out, \u201cthey know the problems and the dangers of life. But they are not afraid to assume their responsibility.\u201d There are three key words that should never be missing in a family, said Pope Francis: please<\/em>, so as\u00a0 not to be intrusive; thank you<\/em> so as to communicate love; and sorry<\/em> so as to be able to forgive and begin again each day (see full text)<\/a>.<\/a> Nineteen songs composed by young people<\/strong> who took part in the Family Talent Contest<\/em> and 4,200 drawings by children in the Present Your Family to the Pope<\/em> project. A gesture of support for the families of Syria also went out from St. Peter\u2019s Square with the collaboration of Caritas Italy<\/a> and Caritas Syria. Holy Mass was celebrated on Sunday, October 27<\/strong>, 2013 amidst an atmosphere of deep recollection and prayer. The Pope invited all to rediscover the dimension of simplicity of joy in prayer. \u201cPray in the family, for one another,\u201d he said. Regarding faith: \u201cLet\u2019s not keep it of ourselves as if it were our bank account,\u201d but share it through our witness and openness to others, urging us to go out to the peripheries (complete text of Pope Francis\u2019 homily)<\/a> The event had been preceeded by the 21st Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family<\/strong> (October 23-25, 2013). \u201cThe family is founded on the indissoluble matrimonial unity between a man and a woman, and it is open to life, it is the engine of the history and of the world,\u201d the Pope affirmed, but \u201cbut we should want to be near to couples in crisis and near to those who are separated.\u201d This is the reason and goal for the 2014-2015 Synod on the Family, \u201cnot to redefine the theology of matrimony and the family,\u201d specified Bishop Paglia, \u201cbut to welcome and listen to families, living in various and complex situations.\u201d For more: www.familia.va<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

Video on CTV<\/a> Romereports http:\/\/youtu.be\/AIo6T_uCNg0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Families from around the world meet with Pope Francis at the conclusion of Year of Faith on October 26-27, 2013. A feast with music, prayer, powerful testimonials and words from the Pope<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}