FRANCIS' FIVE - #4

FIVE YEARS OF POPE FRANCIS 

March 13, 2013 - the day Pope Francis took on the divine mandate of leading the People of God. It has been five years and there are FIVE strong orientations that this wonderful person of God has given the Church and the world. 

4. FAMILY - where Christian faith is lived 

Family was one of the first themes that Pope Francis chose to animate the Church on. As he took over from Pope Benedict, the Church had just completed the Synod on Faith and the Year of Faith. Lumen Fidei and Evangelii Gaudium were presented for our reflection. As soon as that was done, the Pontiff called for not just one, but two synods - one Extraordinary and the other Ordinary - both on the theme of the Family. He made a very clear and loud statement already then that Family is the central element of the Church and it is in the families that Christian faith is lived, shared, passed on and strengthened for the entire Church. 

Amoris Laetitia, the Joy of Love, as a Post Synodal Exhortation might have created unprecedented ripples in the Church among the theologians and the thinkers, but the message that the Pope underlines there is very simple and straightforward: Christian Families have to become schools of faith and love, from where the joy of the Gospel can emanate without ceasing. The synods, the World assembly of Families and the entire Catechesis that he undertook for families, married couples and couples who are in preparation for marriage, is a clear sign of the importance he attaches to families in living the Christian faith today. 

One image that I just cannot forget of Pope Francis is when he met couples after an audience, he met an expectant young mother, and he did not only bless the couple but blessed the child in the womb drawing a sign of the Cross on her stomach... Oh what an awesome person he is, just awe-inspiring! Some just reduce him to a mere pro-lifer... no he is not just that. It is a clear statement of what a Family is called to - to bring forth into the world the miracles that God has in store! Pope Francis' insistence on the need for the Family to become the place where faith is lived and shared, the children are educated in it and where the elders are edified by the children's practice of it. 

Family is a God given gift to humanity to experience God's love in a inimitably concrete manner, in flesh and blood, in words and acts, in body and mind! May we give heed to the call from the Lord to grow in our families and grow our families, into true people of God.